[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
I would like to read some poems.
These are just a few.
I'd say five six minutes, tops.
I've never read them anywhere.
I'm not sure they read well.
I'm not sure that they work for reading,
but I'd like to hear them.
These poems were done because I saw something I was--
I teach a class--
I teach a fiction workshop and a poetry workshop.
And I also teach a class in children's literature.
And I saw something in an interview
about a children's author.
And she had it set in her home, a very famous series
of pictures called "10 Ox Herding Pictures."
And when I heard the names of these pictures,
I knew I had to do poems.
I had never seen the pictures.
I had a student who, after the fact,
came and brought me copies of the pictures.
Anyway, the names of the pictures
are "10 Ox Herding Pictures."
One, searching for the ox.
Two, seeing the traces.
Three, seeing the ox.
Four, catching the ox.
Five, herding the ox.
Six, coming home on the ox back.
Seven, the ox forgotten, leaving the man alone.
Eight, the ox and the man both gone out of sight.
Nine, returning to the origin back to the source.
10, returning to the city with bliss-bestowing hands.
Well, when you get a sentence, bliss-bestowing hands,
I'm a goner.
I'm one of those people-- did you ever wonder,
why do your hands do this?
Why do they obey you?
Well, I wouldn't be surprised if suddenly
they mutiny or something.
I've always thought about that.
Anyway, these pictures were attributed
to Kakuan Shien, a 12th century Chinese zen master.
And this allegorical series was composed as a training guide
for Chinese Buddhist monks.
And I don't know if this works.
A ,editation on "10 Ox Herding Pictures."
Here are the hands, they are still.
If I ask them to rise, they will rise.
If I ask them to turn, they will turn
in an arc of perfect understanding.
They have allowed me only such privilege as
owed to flesh or bone, no more.
They know they belong to the ox.
First picture, searching for the ox.
They have waited my lifetime for this.
Something has entered the hands.
They stir.
The fingers come together, caressing each other's tip
in a need beyond desire until the silence has
released something like a name.
They move away.
I follow.
It is the summons from the ox.
Second picture, seeing the traces.
As in tracks in the Buffalo snow leading to only a mirror,
and what do they make of that, the hands?
Or Baltimore, voices whispering in a room
where no one sits except myself.
And what do the hands make of that?
Third picture, seeing the ox.
Not the flesh, nor the image of the flesh.
Not the bone, nor the clicking of the bone.
Not the brain wearing its mask.
Not the mind, not its disguises.
Not this me, not that me.
Now, here, where no thing is defined,
we are coming to the ox.
Fourth picture, catching the ox.
I whisper come, and something comes.
I am cautioned by the hands.
Fifth picture, herding the ox.
The hands refuse together.
They sit in their pockets as I command ox and enhance my name.
I am Lucille who masters ox.
Ox is the one Lucille masters.
Hands caution me again.
What can be herded is not ox.
Sixth picture, coming home on the ox's is back.
I mount the ox and we shamble on toward the city together.
Our name is inflated as we move.
Lucille who has captured ox, ox who supports Lucille.
We meet a man who wears authority.
He defines ox, describes him.
The man claims ox.
I claim the man.
Seventh picture, the ox forgotten,
leaving the man alone.
I have been arriving 50 years.
Parents, children, lovers have walked with me,
eating me like cake, and I am a good baker.
Somewhere I was going.
50 years.
Hands shiver in their pockets.
Dearly beloved, where is ox?
Eighth picture, the ox and the man both gone out of sight.
Man is not ox.
I am not ox.
No thing is ox.
All things are ox.
Ninth picture, returning to the origin, back to the source.
What comes when you whisper ox is not the ox.
Ox begins in silence and ends in the folding of hands.
10th picture, entering the city with bliss-bestowing hands.
We have come to the gates of the city.
The hands begin to move.
I ask of them only forgiveness.
They tremble as they rise.
End of meditation.
What is ox?
Ox is what.
[APPLAUSE]