ANCIENT BUDDHAS THEN AND NOW
fr. COLD EYE BURNING AT 3:00 AM
Poems by Philomene Long

Poem for my son Patrick

As a young boy
My son Patrick
Saved the lives
Of neighborhood
Insects
Once I saw him
Press on
A drowning beetles's
Abdomen
A bubble popped out
Of its tiny mouth
It lived

And always, with him
There were the frogs
Each would gaze
At the other
Silently
And for a long time
Then the boy
Would extend
His gentle hand
And the frog
Leap lightly
Into his open palm

Patrick would exclaim:
"We love crickets
So there are crickets!"

Patrick cried:
Worm I ever had!"

Patrick sang:
"I feel like a hippopotamus
On a diet
In the spring."

Patrick philosphized:
"If you wake up
And don't touch anything
It won't be a real day."

The pounding machinery
Of religious ideas
Deafens me
It was from rugged mountains
And still waters
That the Zen ancestors first emerged
It is there I would return
And to my son, Patrick
Whose lightness of being
Outweighs theology

Philomene Long