Samahdi and the New York Times

In 1983 I was a Zen Student. Here's a memory;


Samahdi and the New York Times

Qustion: 'What’s black and white and red all over?'

And hey, who’s the new guy sitting next to Sensei on the ryoban?
Oh yeah, the Catholic Priest, Father Rich, joining for the month long ecumenical ango

I watch a spot on the carpet,
  as the 6am purple rises to the glow of dawn,
So to rise the sounds of the city, trains, plains, the Henry Hudson highway,
  ship horns hoot like owls on the river,
I can hear them singly, yet soon they come together and harmonize in a great mum,
  the city is learning to chant her precepts from the hara;  
Dharma, Dharma, never ending, never starting, the word,
Dharma, always beginning, always ending,
  every letter of the word it speaks at once,
  in a low round lung murmur without pause,

I’ve little credence for karma, yet in the mornings this car overcomes the moment,
It’s an old Vw microbus, that doesn’t so much putt or chug as burp,
  it burps down the neighbors driveway up the street,
  plop of the New York Times on the doorstep,
  it burps back along the neighbors driveway, ebbing faint, then
it burps again along our seminary drive, loud out the window now,
  with it’s blasting AM morning radio shedding earworms,
and plop of the Times on our doorstep, then,
  after gassing us through the window with the asphyxiating old gray lady smoke choke of a needed tune up,
  it burps back up our driveway,
  same again with the next neighbors’, down the street, plop goes the Times,
Note to self; must suspend the NY Times before next sesshin 

Later, breakfast, where Father Richard sits at the far end of the dining table,
  he’s reading that same NYT, and protesting to the no one listening,
  it’s August 1983 and he’s just read about Benigno Aquino,
"They just shot him, shot him, on the tarmac…"

Answer: 'A Faddah wid’ a sunburn'