MILK GOAT- a child’s small horse

 ( a zen coan to clarify)

Scene 1: student is constantly absorbed writing the lessons given by his guru, seven days a week, word for word…

Scene 2: at supper one evening his wife, not at all pleased by her husband’s exaggerations, serves him a bowl of pens…

Scene 3: and as it is with coexistence and yin/yang balance, the following school morning while again absorbed in his daily robotic pastime, our friend’s pen runs out of ink!

“Master, may I request another writing implement?

and so the circle completes itself when zen master serves obedient student a bowl of rice!

so off and bygone spread you go, fella,

fixin picky quicky sandwiches

inbetween decidin whats to be done in the way of acting actively,

diligently decidin what inevitably last falls to the matter

whatevers the splatter

so whos the mad hatter

dressed in straight-legged jeans

brown suede cowboy boots two sizes small,

grinnin

whistlin

after a long day out somewhere down the prickly-pear trail

yo! ya see him on the comebehind

always in motion, 

stomping along, moving constantly,

serious cowboy drummer

and people herebouts march round tables with chairs,

wooden ones,

just spacin the day out

to construct another solid night

from aged 

old west blackoakwood

yet there must be some other folk

who gaze listfully through makeshift beams

plateglass dreams

unfocused abstract paintings

who constantly fall over thenselves  

bellylaughing

this all began in an infamous sideshot barrel valley

otherside of the Mules,

when Birdman Bear grabs a guy by each side of the head

forcin em to study unnecessary directions,

especially noticin where the grey stone mountains turn chocolate

sparkle from iron pyrite flanks

they say Ted and his boys

were the first to see sheets of rain over the Ajos,

first warriors to gander the look see Great Divide

be mindful this scene can only be told from choppy white waters

splashing upside vibrant rivers

carving out canyons in one motion

with no repetition no gadgets

clear as this rise precise and direct,

boundaries runnin in clear soapbox circles set back from the rest,

west horizon personified:

"is it so humble to wanna choose how you want to die?"

when some fella grabs onto that last frontier philosophy,

separation drops like a steel curtain

melding colossal mind discernment of living things,

humans or vagabonds

…ahhhhhhhhhhhh...

perception perhaps too clear?

beating wounds reappear?

are there only black or white decisions

made here on this life’s rainbow,

where not much is certain at all?

back on the otherside of the Ajo's Great Divide,

psychedelic kites get caught up in an updraft mist

where fortune tellers

and astrology retailers

prostrate before abandoned shacks built from local lumber

                        (to those recent Oregon mountain folks:

“go-on, git! git…git…way too crowded up here…”

yup, but more’s a’comin, Jed,

up from californication,

drivin those look alike can opener cars,

more of ‘em foreigners,

damn Ameri kans, sheet!)

                        (and you lookin strange too in a different way,

                                    like you come up from way down there to get up over here,

                                                and jus maybe nobody was here first

                                                           to douse himself with elitist me-first power,

                                                                       rather than jus plain “can’t help ya today, Johnson, 

                                                                                    after all what we been thru up here

clearin out those savage Nez Perce )  

well yup, methinks some forget the real outlaws,

fellas who act it by doin it

first kickin in that frozen ice that binds

so others might later grab a free drink

(let's never forget Woodstock was in New York,

this here they call the Great Northwest)

Williams, Oregon

1973