IN POETRY
Cutting Back ​Morning Glory Vines Before A Storm

by Jerome Gagnon

“Being and nonbeing are like vines clinging to a tree.”
Changqing Lan’an* ​

Here come the storm clouds and do I care?
Of course.  But they will have their darkening
and their massing, their vestiges of light in between,
their ominous conversation with everything
above and below for miles around.

Who can say where absence is?
Is it only in what was, has never been --
in which case, nonexistent, a mere figment?
Then where has being gone,
if it ever was?

Wearing my father’s heavy jacket,
carrying clippers and a rake to trim back
the rampant morning glory vines that threaten
like the storm to take over everything,
I begin pulling down the topmost layer of vines
that have risen like a green archipelago --
here a mountain, there a valley --
and all around this ocean of clouds, thickening
like the leaves of summer.

Apart from nonbeing, or clinging to it
as an invisible vine?
Neither one or the other or both together.
Here, now, the purple flowers appear
with their own sweet lie.

Cutting the curled tangles a little at a time,
I toss them in a pile.
A songbird has settled somewhere in the next yard --
Changqing, Changqing, it sings, dispersing
the powdery notes of the old sage’s metaphor
on the wind.   ​

*A disciple of Baizhang and Abbot of Mt. Gui Temple in China, Changqing Lan’an (793–883) is sometimes referred to as the Zen Master of Perfect Wisdom.

​​Jerome Gagnon is the author of two recent collections of poems, Rumors of Wisdom and Spell of the Ordinary. His work reflects a lifelong interest in early wisdom traditions, Asian poetry, and arts. He lives in Northern California. Find him at: www.jeromegagnonblog.wordpress.com.