Zen Poetry: Unusual times

Image: Chalet Cot­tage at Night cour­tesy of Rene Ehrhardt

UNUSUAL TIMES

A door opens
and not one soul comes through
to the empty car­riage
I travel in today.

A day of reflec­tion.
and peace­ful med­i­ta­tion
that reminds me of my pas­sions,
show­ing me the way
to hap­pi­ness,
to pass­ing feel­ings
of success.

An unusual time
to travel on this train,
going against the cur­rent
of daily trav­el­ers
com­ing back from work.

An unusual time
to be won­der­ing what’s here,
when the path in front me,
is well paved,
easy to travel,
nicely paid.

But if usual times
bring with them
chal­lenges,
exhaus­tion,
some money
and the rou­tines
that we all dread;
then unusual times
come full of unfore­seen,
scary,
foggy pos­si­bil­i­ties
that make our hearts
seek the com­fort
of what’s known,
of that which we
know
very well.

Unusual times
will pave the way
to new heights,
new despair,
new love,
new fron­tiers;
Unusual times
will become
known to us
and request
at their own time
to become unusual
like they once were.

Unusual times
And usual times;
A del­i­cate bal­ance
We must keep
as we travel in this train
through our every­day life,
meet­ing other trav­ellers
that ignore us
just like we ignore
them.

For more poetry, visit the fol­low­ing links:

• Tomor­row — a poem inspired by Bradley Trevor Grieves book by the same name
• Reflec­tions of a Peace­ful War­rior — a poem inspired in a talk given by Dan Mill­man in Syd­ney (April ‘08)
• Lone­li­ness — poetry in the Zen tradition
• Sam­sara — another Zen poem that explains the con­cept of Sam­sara
• Que es poe­sia? — a lib­eral trans­la­tion into eng­lish of Gus­tavo Adolfo Becker’s famous poem
• Joy — An uplift­ing poem about the nature of happiness

or you can visit The crazy Colombian’s new book Zen and the art of pho­to­graphic story-telling

Tagged as: Poetry, Zen