Alan Zucker

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Posts by Alan Zucker:

The Knowing Comes: I Can Open

the rain falls on
a broad hillside of imagination.
it gathers, at first in trickles
and then, in rivulets
finally, it babbles into a brook…
closing off other possibilities
it tumbles into the channel
of other rain that fell
long ago in another…
life, a canyon carved deep
by thoughtful repetition…
I think, this is how it has always been
how it must be

Yes, and…
then the knowing comes: I can open

the rain may fall on
something deep and wide,
a lake of imagination.
in knowing, not thinking…
I can open
to loving the rain,
holding compassion for the fall,
in joyous empathy,
leaving me unperturbed.
calm and at peace
with my treasured qualities of being
I can open:
and the knowing comes

mandala of raindrops

Seed line for this poem is from “I love the dark hours,”A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Center of Everything

My annual dharma-sangha officially starts soon, and as a prequel, Kelly Blaser has gathered folks for a free week-long series of writing sessions.

Seed line used for writing session: 
“The center of everything.  Leave nothing in your wake.”
from the poem Regret Nothing by January Gill O’neill

The Center of Everything
by Alan Zucker

As the river rushes around me I hear the voice from the bank.

This moment. 
This place and time. 
This is the center of everything. 
What happens next is your choice. 
Will you choose based on fear?

Will you allow the love
to flow and carry you
to a place where you let go
of aversion and desire,
so that you can see
precisely what is required?

Then and there, you will regret nothing. 
Then and there, you will leave nothing in your wake.
Then and there, your actions will be aligned
in accord with what is.
Walking with your whole heart intact.

center of everything

Winter Obliquity

Northern cold, and
Southern heat, it’s
a day to celebrate, the
planet. She is tilted!

Queue up the fanfare!
Trumpets.
Groovy bass lines.
Funky beats.
Whatever you got.

Dance like fire
in divergence
from center.

Light our love
through the changes
of seasons.

Cheer with joy
for our graceful
creations.

All beings
in all of our
oblique
expressions.

Fire dancers in motion.

Alone and Cold

Sometimes I feel
a special kind of alone
that is mournfully reminiscent
of a cold and windy
day in December,
on the beach
in Atlantic City.

It arises, oddly enough,
from disappointment
in the behavior
of those whom I love,
who tread a path
of self destruction.

I walk with them
by their side
in support of their
freedom to choose, their
liberty to learn through
their dreadful decisions.

I am with them
buttoned and bundled
against frigid and sharp
bluster of sand-swept wind,
trying to make sense
of the incongruous beauty.

Yet I am alone,
to parry the creations
that are born
of their free will,
unsheltered from the
storm of consequences

So, I scream
in primal release
out toward the ocean,
or into my white knuckled hands,
to release the sadness
and tight-tension reactivity
pelting me from within

And, I come back
to a neutral center, and
forgive them for
not being who
I expected
them to be.

alanzuckerphoto-P1290159

Dharma-nade, A Recipe

0 Comments

It sounds weird
to say that I am
grateful for the pain.

To be clear,
I don’t enjoy it.
I am not
masochistic.

This is
one of those
make lemonade
situations.

The pain, you see, attracts
the mind’s attention.
The sharper the pain,
the more total the attention.
Through this hyper-focus
generously pour intention
for liberation and peace,
with dollops of loving kindness,
for the benefit of all.

Of course,
we would much rather
work with the breath.
Let the mind find focus
in the rhythmic flow
of the quiet moments.
Way more comfortable.

But sometimes
we have these lemons
called pain.

This is
one of those
make lemonade
situations.

 

alanzuckerphoto-IMG_4244-Edit

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