Meditation

I wish I could learn to speak

beautifully 

like our friend the oracle 

to say what is in the heart 

of all of us

and learn to offer up kindness 

as a benediction 

that we might begin to heal

from our martyrdom 

and the small 

broken-hearted afflictions

of our kaihōgyō

the mountain of life 

will take us in the end 

there are places 

where we are likely to plunge

where the wall of sandstone and ice 

waits to crumble 

under our hands

and yet we limp from shrine to shrine

mumbling our prayers

and carrying with us 

the rokumon-sen coin 

to pay for our passage

across the river 

into the land of the dead.