This is the Way of the World
It is Sunday.
I am sitting here
on a wooden bench
watching the ripples of the Hudson River
and some rocks and trees.
The sun, 93 million miles behind me,
is making it easy to see
my own shadow on the path
between the river and me
as well as the movements of my pen
on my notebook fishing for words.
A motorboat goes by,
but none of the clouds overhead.
Somewhere on planet Earth
someone is taking their last breath
and someone is taking their first,
someone is getting married
and someone is getting divorced,
someone is making a fortune
and someone is losing theirs.
This is the way of the world:
now you see it, now you don't.
Here comes another motorboat,
there are two people in it waving at me.
It is moving much more slowly
than the other one
only minutes ago.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2024All I'm Doing Right Now
All I am doing right now is writing these words to you,
small helium-filled balloons
I offer for all those birthdays I missed.
I really don't know where these balloons will take you,
it all depends on you --
the way you hold the string
(or maybe there is more than just one string).
Well, of course there is more than one string --
we're talking about balloons,
multiple, not singular.
lighter-than-air-transportation devices.
They may seem to be words, but they are actually balloons.
Go for the ride!
Wherever you end up is the right place to be.
It is! And you are!
Always remember that
and the way butterflies move in a breeze,
and, please tell me, kind madam or sir,
how in the world did butterflies ever get created in the first place
and am I still expected to pay my taxes?
What if I forget my name and wherever I go
gardenias spring up all around me,
hoping as only gardenias can hope,
that one day the one they call the "Master"
will find his way there for no particular reason at all,
he being completely "of the moment" or perhaps I should say
(and please forgive me if I mess up the translation,
but it goes a little something like this:)
"You were made in the image of God.
You were, you are,
of that you need not have any doubt.
As you are you are."
How great is that!
"As you are you are."
I may have to make a t-shirt with those words on it.
Nothing has to change with you!
You don't need to get better
or work smarter or be worthy of anything.
As far as I can tell, you are worthy of EVERYTHING,
though it's always useful to
remember George Carlin's perspective:
"If you had everything, where would you put it?"
And now, one last thing before I take my leave:
the best book I've read in quite a while is
Hear Yourself: How to Find Peace in a Noisy World
by Prem Rawat.
So much love! Heaps. Tons. Buckets full.
What Rumi, Hafiz, Mirabai, Kabir, and you,
on a good day are plugged into full-tilt boogey,
walking the high road home.
Welcome to the fountain of laughter and tears, my friends,
welcome to remembering and forgetting
and then remembering again,
opening like a lotus
or a clenched fist
or a window.
And with that, dear brothers and sisters,
daughters and sons, wizards, fools, home run hitters,
flash back Frankies, and little Joey from Brooklyn, I take my leave.
Yo, Joey, how did you find your way into this poem?
Wait, don't tell me. I know why. I really do.
This massive, bodacious love and presence is who and what you are.
How could you be anywhere else?
Welcome Frankie! You da man!
Praise the Lord! And praise the praisers, too!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2024There Is a Poem in Here, Somewhere
When I was barely 22,
a bearded graduate student
at an Ivy League university in New England,
I met with my poetry advisor
one fine autumn day,
both of us wishing we were somewhere else,
perhaps a small fishing village in Portugal
or a smoky jazz club in New York.
I showed him my poem,
a one-pager on onion skin paper
and waited for his dim murmur of praise.
"There's a poem in here, somewhere," he said,
not quite shaking his head, but wanting to.
"No," I replied, "this IS the poem,"
but he, having long ago
lost interest in his wife, persisted.
Now it is 55 years later
and I finally understand what he meant.
Yes, for sure,
there is a poem in here somewhere,
a poem within a poem
and another within that
until the only thing that remains
is my impulse to write
and the sound of a bird
outside my half-opened window,
or is it the creaking of my chair
as I stand to exit the room?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:12 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2024THE QUESTION
Do I take a breath or does it take me?
Then again, does it really matter?
When I am with you, my Friend,
questions do not exist,
just the space from which they arise
and the feeling of fulfillment.
Here's as simple as it gets:
nothing is happening
and so is everything.
both at the same time,
someone is born,
someone dies
and someone writes this poem.
Just a few minutes ago,
at gate C-12 in the Dubai Airport,
a small child left her mother's lap
and handed me a single potato chip.
Just one.
It was a feast.
Before the hour ends,
I will board a plane for a very long flight,
but I am already home.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2024MILKWEED
Have you ever seen a puff of milkweed floating by
on your way to somewhere
or other?
Lighter than air it seems to be,
imported from a dream.
It catches your eye
and you,for the moment,forget
where you're going and where you have been,
nothing in the world mattering in the least.
And so, you reach,
wanting only to hold the milkweed in your hand,
but as you do (and have done many times before)
the wind of your reaching
only pushes it further away.
More reaching for it does not help,
nor does doing nothing at all.
And then, if you're lucky,
the holy grail of your own breath
finds a way to position your hand in space before you,
exactly where the milkweed
is just about to go.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2024A SIX-PACK of KABIR
THREE POEMS WRITTEN LAST NIGHT in KUALA LUMPUR, WAITING for PREM RAWAT'S 5-DAY CONFERENCE to BEGIN on JULY 8th.
#1
There is something that cannot be said
and I am not saying it.
If I try to whisper it into your ear,
please slap me,
I really have no idea what I'm talking about.
#2
I once wrote a poem that no one read.
No one read it because I wrote it on a leaf
and sailed it down a river with no name.
How I got there is a complete and utter mystery to me.
All I know is this:
somewhere a fish is eating my words.
#3
I just drank a 6-pack of Kabir.
Perfectly chilled it was, no glass needed.
None.
I drank straight from the bottle like a baby.
I'm told the bottles will be recycled --
that they're worth something,
but I don't believe it.
Why should I?
After drinking Kabir tonight, there's nothing left to believe --
just imbibe.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)
