A Poet Writes Back

Here is a fragment of an open letter from the poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush declining the
invitation to read and speak at the National Book Festival in Washington,
DC. It has been circulating out there on the internet since October, 2005. Alas.

[T]he prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought
of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I
thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the
citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way,
even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we
should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to
invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of
life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their
home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a
decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted
language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have
begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the
opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear
witness -- as an American who loves her country and its principles and its
writing -- against this undeclared and devastating war.

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if
I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning
what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food
from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that
unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of
permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries
where they will be tortured for us. So many Americans who had felt pride in our country
now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and
fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the
flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

A Cow's Life

At my cousin Doug Leman's farm, the dairy cows live row on row in a huge barn. Eight hundred ladies in various stages of lactation and lactational readiness. For a few weeks before giving birth, they go dry and are moved to another location where they are put out to pasture. But mostly they live in a giant barn.

You might think this would be unpleasant for the cow, being cooped up all day. But you'd be wrong. An unhappy cow does not give milk. The converse is also true: if she's giving milk, she must be happy. These ladies give milk, so they must be happy.



So sensitive are the cows that if you kick one or yell at her, there is a measurable decline in her production. You can keep track of who is who by means of the microchip each carries in her ear. The pampering continues in the special nutritionist who monitors the bovine diet. Nothing but the best silage, hay, and grain on the menu.

This sensitivity to adversity is astonishing. It is well-known in the dairy industry that electric fields impair milk production. Presumably because they make the cows feel crappy. Special consultants will come to your dairy and tell you that this machinery must be moved, or that that heating coil--which thaws the drinking water in wintertime--must go. The farmers comply, you may be sure.

Considering the hemming and hawing over the effects of electric fields on humans, and the inconclusive studies that have come out, you'd think this would merit some notice. Here are animals kept under uniform conditions, and a recognized deleterious effect to EMF exposure. If cows get to be shielded from electric fields...why not the rest of us sentient mammals?

You Have One Wish...

In Japantown today, there were wishing trees for the Tanabata festival. At one point in the lunar calendar, the stars Rigel and Vega come near one another in the sky. The Japanese imagine that these are lovers being reunited. It's a very sweet summer holiday. A good time for invoking a certain celestial tenderness into one's own life.

People had written wishes in English, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Ninety percent of the ones I could read were for money ("OKANE!"). Five percent were for perpetual togetherness with a girlfriend, boyfriend or pet (too bad all things are marked by impermanence). The other five percent were for someone else's well-being, or for family togetherness. Those gave me a feeling like having found a gift.

As I looked at the trees, I knew what my deepest wish was. Not to become Buddha. Not, specifically, to free beings from suffering, or to serve the world in some way. Just to have a long and happy life with the man I'm going to marry. I think that does actually include sila, samadhi, and prajna. It includes someone else's well-being, and family togetherness. And I'm OK with that.

Existence/SF

I will be in training for three weeks at SF Zen Center.

There are many old friends here--and many familiar faces I've met elsewhere--all gathered to ask a question about the essence of Dharma apart from cultural and sectarian convention. If the Buddhadharma isn't the robes or the bowing; if following the Buddha Way can be accomplished by any number of practices, of which seated meditation is but one; if the Dharma is not a thing that resided in India or China--then WHAT IS IT?

I don't know, but Paul Haller feels studying the Sandokai and meeting teachers from a variety of Buddhist sects will help us tease through the puzzle. So I'm game.

Each of the myriad things has its merit,
expressed according to function and place.

I had thought it would be nice to get out and about. I lived in San Francisco for seven years, and I used to live in this neighborhood. It was a different life then: I had a biochemist boyfriend; I lived in a moldy old house; I was presumed to be a geneticist.

I was tied to the elements of my life in ways both wholesome and otherwise. Mostly, I liked my entanglements. I was my entanglements: relationships engender identity. So I was that person once. Just being back in San Francisco, some feeling of being the old Self is revived. I realize I visit this place, and other places I have been tied to, in an attempt to reconcile Then with Now. In an attempt to find out who I was, and what I am. If I am not a PhD student, and and my true self is not a scientist; if my ideas and concepts about myself can change so radically--WHAT AM I? Who is this walking down the street? What is this remembering? Where does it come from?

When I walk down the streets of what, four eon-years ago, was my neighborhood, I can barely see anything, because everything is so familiar. It's grimy, it's Victorian, it's chaotic. In the coffeeshop, on the streetcorner, on the steps of houses, the people are all different, but they're the same. Same personalities, with different faces.

Along the projects, two emaciated black women with headscarves are sitting in the sunshine. As I pass, I bid them a neutral, but cordial, good-day. They return the greeting, and I hear one say to the other, "That was real polite."

In the Walgreens, the lady at the checkout has nappy bleached-orange hair. I ask her how she's doing today. "Blessed and delivered," she says. "Blessed and delivered."

Aren't we all?

I went out to a café in the evening, thinking it would be enjoyable. It wasn't, really. Maybe I would have been restless anywhere, but it didn't feel right. I wanted to be back at the Center rather drinking bad tea in a room full of people pretending to ignore each other. It was dark and cold and windy. San Francisco summertime.

It was late, and wakeup was at 6am. Trudging up Church Street, I saw a pair of legs that left me breathless. They belonged to a gargantuan homeless man steering a bicycle laden with bulging sacks. There must have been twenty bags hanging off the handlebars, the top tube, the racks. He wore a massive backpack and cutoff pants. In the middle of each calf, grimy bandages peeled away from a pair of bloody wounds. Symmetrical black mouths. Filthy. How does that happen? It was too much. But it is his life--and the merest corner of my life.

I walked quickly, and took the Jizo Shingon as my mantra, for this strange man, and all who travel through this realm.

OM KA KA KABI SAN MA E SOWA KA

It was more of a question. How do we come to fear others? And how are we connected with them anyway? "Emaciated black women" equals crack, or AIDS. "Filthy bleeding man" means danger. This story might be true or it might not. If it is true, are we are Blessed and Delivered, regardless? Even on crack? With AIDS? When abused and brutalized?

Perhaps the question is not whether life is sacred, in all its decay and defilement, but how.

Praying 4 U

I'll confess: I have been angry, and thought way too much about, the few individuals who have done me harm in this relatively painless life. It was pointed out to me the other day that perhaps a person of the Dharma would pray for those who have intentionally and selfishily harmed one; perhaps a person of the Dharma would urgently hope that these beings be spared the nasty karma that results from behaving nastily.

Me? That? Well, 'tis the point exactly. Forgiveness is beautiful concept, until it is belatedly understood as an option.

Adventures In Reality Part 2

I hadn't been to Indiana in a while (19 years), and my grandpa's health isn't so great. I told B I wanted to visit but didn't think it could work out. B thought otherwise, and somehow he made it happen.

So, after a weeklong meditation retreat where time slowed to an invisible pace, I whisked myself to Indiana, drove through the countryside with my man, and delivered myself to a pair of happy grandparents.

They immediately took us around to share us with my mom's aunts and uncles, all of whom live in beautiful little houses about 50 feet apart. I am wearing my clothes from the retreat, I have had almost no sleep, and I am happy.



There is a meeting of cultures at work in these photos. You can't see the photographer, but he's part of the interchange.

Adventures In Reality Part I

We are buying a flat.



I never thought that would happen.
I told B I would be happy there regardless. But the bathroom tile could be improved.