Letters from a Gardener

(Michael Stone)

 

October 7

Do you wonder where I am? As the fates have it,

Those long-fingered weavers, I find myself

In the northern mountains of New Mexico.

Life suddenly came to an end in California,

At once too comfortable and dangerous,

Where lotus-eaters bloom on every corner.

Ten months ago I came to give a talk

On orchards to a group of farmers here,

And found the Bodhi needed a new gardener.

It’s taken me ten months to turn my mind

From California, but finally here I am.

 

Six acres on Jemez Creek, which runs between

The constellated hot springs of the canyon;

At night in the autumn air, now growing colder,

I sit beneath that other milky way

Alone, in water hotter than my blood.

The place belonged before to Benedictines,

Buildings mostly low, built of adobe;

Large community kitchen, dining hall,

Rooms for meditation, pottery workshed,

Greenhouse, orchards, and outlying fields.

All day we hear the fluid sound of wind

Through the by now half-golden aspen trees,

And lighter music of running water, winding

Only a dozen yards from where I sleep.

 

What has always attracted me to Zen

Is just the practice of living here and now;

Desire for another, mystic world,

Desire itself, engenders suffering,

And the iron ego is its driving wheel.

We rise at 4:15 for chanting, tea,

Stretching, meditation, and then breakfast;

Zazen again, a little time to think;

Showers, hot springs, zazen, dinner, time

To be alone; zazen and tea; lights out

As the other lights come on in the cold evening.

Write when you can. Much love to you, amiga.

 

October 22

You see, the Bodhi’s not a monastery,

Though we were lately visited by thirty

Japanese Rinzai monks, none of whom spoke

A word of English. They all carried cameras,

Shot rolls of film, and bought out every piece

Of the Bodhi’s American Raku pottery.

They presented our Roshi with a bronze of Kannon,

A Bodhisattva; Roshi took them around

To Taos, Santa Fe and Colorado.

 

Sasaki Roshi, now almost seventy,

Came to America fifteen years ago

To teach, at the request of his own teacher.

He is a rock, whose center of gravity

Roots him to bedrock. He can see right through you.

Sanzen, the personal interview with Roshi,

Must be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

 

The aspen and cottonwood are blazing yellow;

The Bodhi garden is still full of flowers:

Zinnia, cosmos, hollyhock, marigold.

And fruits: Tomatoes, eggplants, carrot, onion,

Melons, cucumbers, squash (winter and summer(,

And chili peppers, soon to be hung up

As brilliant sheaves of red, in front of houses,

Cabbages and Jerusalem artichokes.

Forty fruit trees in their second winter.

We’re opening some untilled land to grow

Winter rye, first step in building soil;

The soil is mostly clay, redder than flesh.

Water comes from wells and irrigation.

 

I keep myself as open as I can,

Attend the discipline of concentration

Through faith that alters with despair, and hunger.

Already I’ve written too much; I just can’t say

It all in so many words. You understand;

We suffer because of what we have forgotten.

 

November 23

West from my window virgin mesa rises

A half-mile over the narrow Jemez valley.

My favored haunts these days are Pueblo ruins

Rising eight thousand feet above sea level.

I sit and muse in the home of juniper, cholla,

Prickly pear cactus, ponderosa,

Piñon and all the varieties of oak.

The home of rabbit, squirrel, deer and elk,

Bear, rattler, coyote, and mountain lion

Visible sometimes at my eye’s dark corner.

 

The sky is a deep blue, the winds are gusty,

Fast-travelling clouds will briefly mask the sun;

Warm days, cold nights, the coldest time of all

Is the still interval between dawn and sunrise.

Only the Russian olives across the river

Still hold their leaves; willow and elm stand naked;

Raccoon come down at sunset to watch and bathe,

To eat the harsh, hard fruit the ash lets fall.

The Bodhi garden’s all but harvested;

Only Daikon radish, turnip, kale,

Parsley, salsify, onions are in the ground.

 

I’m building compost, cleaning local corrals

And stables for manure, hauling in loads

Of leaves and wood chips from an abandoned sawmill;

Watching the fall-sown rye green the red soil

Ever so slowly, making a cover for winter;

Cleaning all the tools and machinery;

Making an inventory of bulbs and seeds.

The Jemez pueblo is holding all-day dances

For corn and harvest; we may trade some chickens

For Hopi corn, squash, melon, gourd and beans,

Chili pepper seed, and instructions for planting.

 

December 6

These December mornings we are greeted

By the late-rising and last-quarter moon,

Walking across the dry grass to the Zendo

Where we drink green tea, chant from the Sutras.

How did I sleep through dawn so many years?

The lowered sun comes late into the canyon;

Morning work has already begun

When light slips down the steep walls of the mesa.

Incense of burning piñon drifts from town,

A smell which belongs in essence to the pueblos,

Especially now when winter lies on the land.

 

Weekends a caravan of pickups and trailers

Brings wood to town, some cut on designated

National Forest lands, and some just deadfall.

Most families here have summer gardens, fruit trees,

Chickens, and burn the gathered wood for heat;

But whereas once the houses were adobe,

Pumice, stone and wood, these days they’re most

Prefab or mobile, foundations all uprooted.

The Atomic Laboratories pay good money,

And when folks go up now into the mountains

It’s in an aluminum trailer, bought on credit.

 

The practice of clear-cutting lumber leads

To vicious erosion over the mesa slopes;

The fishy smell of money enterprise

Wafts up the valley too, developers,

Land brokers, marketing folly, greed and waste.

We already live so well, but it is never,

For our American green-stuffed lusts, enough.

 

Tomorrow is the eve of Buddha’s enlightenment

Under the Bodhi tree, and so begins

A season of intensive meditation,

Daily sanzen with Roshi, and studied silence.

Here I stop writing, caught in the spirit of things,

And wish you happiness for Christmastide,

My travelling companion. Siempre, Michael