Writing - a department of cuke-The-arts
Poems by Beverly (Horowtiz) Armstrong
Beverly's Suzuki Stories - Beverly's cuke page
Face of My Teacher
I am putting away everything
but the face of my teacher who
is perhaps not your teacher but you
may do the same. I am praying
for peace with my whole
heart. The window across
from my breathing is showing
a field and a red car that merely
drives through. His hands set
in stained glass gassho on a card
leans against the window given
by my dead friend years ago
who lives in me still. As I write this
I am breathing in the terrible
karma that makes men mad
and breathing out my field its
ordinary rhythms of life and death
the way it lays content asking
for nothing more than what arrives
and suffers the pickaxe crows
without complaint. Paris is burning
where i stood long ago with toothache
pain in front of the Mona Lisa.
I am tired of angry men who behave
like vindictive boys. May their hate merely
manure the ground. May the face of my
teacher find them and also love.