MILK GOAT- a child’s small horse

( a zen coan to clarify)

Scene 1: a student constantly absorbed in writing down every word uttered 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 please request another writing implement?

and so the circle is completed when hip 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

whos the mad hatter

dressed in straight-legged jeans

brown suede cowboy boots two sizes small,

grinnin

whistlin

after a long day out on the prickly-pear trail

yo!

see him on the comebehind

always the motion

marching, moving constantly

serious cowboy drummer

and people herebouts also seriously march round tables,

wooden ones,

spacin the day out

to construct a solid night

from aged old west

blackoakwood

still, there must be some perfect folk

who gaze listfully through makeshift beams

plateglass dreams

unfocused abstract painters

who constantly fall over

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 necessary directions,

especially noticin where the grey stone mountains turn chocolate

then sparkle from iron pyrite flanks

Ted and his boys

where the first warriors to see the sheets of rain over the Ajos,

the first warriors to gander the whatever 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,

no repetition no gadgets

clear as this rise

precise and direct,

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

west horizon personifies:

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

when a fella holds onto last frontier philosophy,

separation drops like a steel curtain

saltin colossal mind discernment between livin things,

whether humans or vagabonds

…ahhhhhhhhhhhh...

perception perhaps too clear?

all beating wounds appear?

can there be only black or white decisions

made on this here life’s rainbow,

where no one's certain of anything at all?

psychedelic kites caught up in some updraft mist

where fortune tellers

astrology resellers

prostrate before abandoned dwellings built from local lumber

(said to those big Oregon hill mountin dogs:)

“go-on, git! git…git…it’s too crowded up here…”

yup, more’s a’comin, Jed,

up from californication,

drivin those look alike can opener cars,

more of ‘em foreigners,

damn Amerikans, 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 that elitist power,

or jus plain “can’t help ya today, Johnson,

after all what we been thru)

yup, methinks a few forgot 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

(never forget Woodstock was in New York,

this here they call the great northwest)

Williams, Oregon

1973