Poem for Beginner's Mind (初心)

You can fill the page

With your personal slang

And silly rhymes

And still not advance

Beyond the starting line

Because the empty page

Is the surest sign of

Beginner’s mind

When mind itself

Falls under erasure

Only then does duality

Begin to subside like

The shadowless tree

Under a cloudless sky

In such silence where 
Poems from the first abide

Renewed Vision: 2020

New Year's day 2020

And sunlight itself

Has awoken refreshed

Clarifying all that 

Presents itself 

The coffee grinds

The plate of crumbs

Each branch and twig 

All once again self-possessed

And each shadow endowed 

With renewed purpose

The mind comes with 

A calendar of its own and 

It relishes nothing more  

Than a clean slate