Chung Tzu: Phantom Cup & Real Water

Chung Tzu and I are in the backyard, on the deck in the first warm sun of spring. We are facing the alley.

"After all these years, I see." I say.

Chung Tzu looks at me sideways, just past the edge of the newspaper. 

"Truly, I see."

Chung Tzu rustles the newspaper, goes back to reading. 

"I will start to stop trying." 

"AHEM!" says Chung Tzu, as if to the squirrels. "Phantom cup! Real water."

----

South Florida Street

St Louis Park

Stove Parts Says 'Hold Onto Your Hat!" plus Things in Trees

crow in a tree
punctuation mark
to never ending vastness

I put my pen down.

"Hoo hoo!" says Chung Tzu "Saying there's this or that in the sky. How grand!"

"Hold onto your hat!" says Stove Parts.

So I write:

cow in a tree
punctuation mark
to never ending vastness

"Moo!" says Chung Tzu.

"Now you're just making fun." says Stove Parts.

I write:

clown in a tree
honk honk! honk honk!
honk honk honk!

"Gah ha ha ha!" laughs Chung Tzu, holding his belly, wiping tears from his eyes. "GOOSE!"

"I've had enough of you both!" says Stove Parts, as he leaves.


***

Afternoon
Minnetonka
1.29.20

He's Forgetful Says Chung Tzu

"Hello Mr. Pavarotti." I say in the morning, to Pavarotti.

Pavarotti just stares at me.

"He's forgetful." says Chung Tzu. "The only way he remembers things is when he acts rambunctiously."

Pavarotti jumps up and grabs a can of silly string, and starts covering me with it.

"I remember you now." he says, as the can sprays and sprays.



_____

St Louis Park

Henry Ford Who

"Nobody likes him! Why should they?" says Henry Ford, looking up from the newspaper. "He's a horrible person!"

Chung Tzu hums and looks out the window at bunny tracks in the snow.

"Who is?" I ask.

"Who?" says Henry Ford.

"WHO IS?"

"I don't know!" says Henry Ford.



-----

Florida St
St Louis Park

Leaches and Drinking

I look up from the book I was reading. "Wow! Did you know a leach has a three-jawed mouth, two hearts, two circulatory systems, five pairs of eyes, 32 brains, and 10 stomachs?"

Chung Tzu sits there, to let it all sink in.

"Amazing! And you thought you were special!" says Stove Parts.

***

I meet Broken Pot in a tavern. Broken Pot gets drunk.

"You have the ability to be a drunk, how can you stop drinking?" says Broken Pot.

We walk to the highest hill. It is cold and late, the moon is high above us. The wind blows through us so our teeth chatter.

"By discarding all thinking. By discarding all ideas of good or bad towards drinking."

We walk back to the tavern. By the time we get back, Broken Pot is sober.

Chung Tzu Asks Do You have a Fire in Your Head?

"I can use my negative thinking to out-think my negative thinking!" I exclaim.

"Hmmm. Let me see. What is fire? Can fire burn water?" wonders Chung Tzu, "Can fire burn fire? Or fire burn air? Or earth? Oh my!"

"Fire burns wood!"

"Just like the thoughts seem to burn in your mind. But do you have a fire in your head?" asks Chung Tzu.


-----

1.18.20

Chung Tzu: Oh my brother. Don't deceive yourself.

"I'm not entirely certain I ever had that. Or even wanted something like that."

"Oh my brother. Don't deceive yourself." says Chung Tzu coming into the kitchen, from the tiny pantry. "You certainly did."

"Well now it is now stuck in my head. Just like a song. Just like an exception to the rule."

Chung Tzu points to a melting icicle, warming in the sun. "Would you like for me to come up with a nursery rhyme to remember this?"


*****

Winter
Florida Street South

Eurysaces and His Most Excellent Wife

Chung Tzu is here, reading the newspaper.

Eurysaces drops by and says, quite loudly, "EST HOC MONIMENTUM MARGEI VERGILEI EURSYACIS PISTORIS REDEMPTORIS APPARET."

Chung Tzu gives him a salute, where he is sitting.

"I'm sorry, I don't speak Latin."

"Don't worry, Son." says Eurysaces. "I was saying I bake."

"And his most excellent wife was as precious as a basket of bread.*" says Chung Tzu.




-----

Hat Lake



---------

* FUIT ATISTIA UXOR MIHEI FEMINA OPITUMA VEIXSIT QUOIUS CORPORIS RELIQUAE QUOD SUPERANT SUNT IN HOC PANARIO

Reading Koans

It is a winter morning, very bright, very cold. I read koans. They all seem to make sense.

"Snow shakes off the arms of trees." I observe to Chung Tzu

"You're a very busy little fellow in your noggin."says Chung Tzu.


----

Hat Lake

Chung Tzu: Why don't you give them a heads up like I do?

The morning is beautiful, bright, with a few stray clouds going west. Going to work, I get cut off repeatedly by a fiery red Dodge Charger. I think the driver is not paying attention, or they are crazy.

When I pull into work, it pulls up next to me.

Chung Tzu is at the wheel, and I see Lao Tzu and Henry Ford talking quietly in the back seat.

"I am astonished!" I say. "I did not know you could drive."

"Yaaaas?" replies Chung Tzu like Dean Moriarty.

"How so? Why?" is all I can say back.

"If you are aware you know so little, why do you take such pride in what you think you know?" says Henry Ford.

"Just what the man said." says Chung Tzu.

"But what about all the bugs and little creatures that will get hurt when you go speeding down the road?"

"Oh, that is not a problem." says Chung Tzu, revving the engine, "I just yell out from time to time as we go that I'm completely mad ... "

"I don't think that will work for me."

"Have you tried?" asks Henry Ford.

"Not yet."

"Well, if you don't try things, you'll never know." says Henry Ford.

"Even things that seem to be silly?"

"Yes." says Henry Ford.


***

Later in the day I call Chung Tzu up.

"How is the driving going? How are all those critters and bugs?"

"Just fine!" says Chung Tzu.

"Oh?"

"Yeah! We can be OK out in the world, anywhere. The only person they have to watch out for is people like you! Why don't you give them a heads up?"

"I'd rather be the kind of person where they don't have to watch out for me at all." I say after thinking about what Chung Tzu said.

"Oh?" asks Chung Tzu. "You could try that too."



***


Minnetonka
Cheshire Lane

Peacefully or Fretfully

Chung Tzu and I sit outside under the trees, the dogwoods and serviceberrys are fragrant and bursting with white petals. They fall like snow! The sky is greater and greater and the petals keep falling.

"What do you say about these petals?" I ask Chung Tzu.

"They are all perfumed and falling sweetly." says Chung Tzu, "Some cry and say this is terrible. They cannot even sleep at night, clutching their pillow, moaning, grinding their teeth."

"Oh?"

"Others rejoice and are elated."says Chung Tzu, "Those sense the night so peacefully."

"Why?"

"Depends! How do you spend your night? Peacefully or fretfully?"


--------

By the Pond
Under the dogwood trees
Spring
MN

Chung Tzu Says Quietly

"Water does not run uphill. Wind does not blow backwards." I mention to Chung Tzu.

The light changes over the surface of the lake. I can see ripples spreading, as the wind blows. Dry reeds bend, from last summer. The new reeds will be pushing through.

"Ahem." he says.

"Where do these thoughts come from?" I ask him sincerely.

"Water flows. Wind blows. Mind plays at flowing, blowing." Chung Tzu says.


___

Afternoon
View of the Pond
MN

Chung Tzu Goes HONK

It is the morning, on the 3rd floor. Cats are fed. Chung Tzu comes in and points.

"Where you been?" I ask him.

"Been? Brother, I've been here all along!"

"Where?"

"La la! Down there. In paradise." he points to the pond.

"What did you find? Water and mud?"

"Reeds! Sticks!" says Chung Tzu.

"I saw you all along!" I exclaim, jumping up, shaking his hand. "I thought you were a big goose!"

"HONK!" goes Chung Tzu.



**

Chung Tzu and the Invisible Man

I'm feeling invisible, today it feels alright to be invisible.

Chung Tzu comes in.

I sit very quietly. Chung Tzu looks around the room, he hums to himself, he picks up this and that, he sits on the couch and he reads part of a book. I am invisible. Like a statue, with no movement.

"Not bad!" says Ching Tzu, and he gets up to leave. "But since you are still thinking, you might as well get back to work!"

**

HB BC
Jan 2015

Chung Tzu Smiles and Claps His Hands

I am sitting on the roof, singing, when Chung Tzu climbs up the ladder.

"Hello there sparrow!" says Chung Tzu.

"Hello there!" I reply.

"Where will you fly today?" asks Chung Tzu.

"I'm going to stay right here and sing!"

"And why is that?"

"Because I can fly all over the place anytime I want!"

Chung Tzu likes that so much, he smiles and claps his hands.


***

HB
Rooftop
1.19.15

Moop Frog and Chung Tzu

I saw a frog and I listened to it.

It said, "MOOP."

"You should be croaking." I said.

The frog said, "MOOP."

"CROAK." I said.

The frog said, "MOOP."

I made a note to tell someone what I have seen and heard, if I saw a certain person (or persons).

*

Later I saw Chung Tzu, dragging an old chicken bone down the path on the end of a dirty string.

"I found a frog that goes "MOOP"!" I yelled out when I saw him.

"Indeed!" said Chung Tzu. We sat down on the side of the trail in the shade.

"What's with the chicken bone on the string?"

"Oh, that? Ha ha ha ha." Chung Tzu laughed. "You noticed it? I've been dragging that thing around for at least a year."

"You have not, I would have noticed."

"Really?" laughed Chung Tzu.

*

Walking back, Chung Tzu is dragging the repulsive chicken bone on the string down the trail, enjoying himself. People are tripping over the string and getting mad at us.

"That chicken bone on the string is disgusting and a hazard to others!" I said. Chung Tzu laughs.

We come to the place where the frog is, and we listen.

"MOOP." says the frog.

"MOOP." says Chung Tzu.

"MOOP!" says the frog.

"MOOP!" says Chung Tzu. "OK -- here's a rotten chicken bone on a string."

"Why are you giving it to me?"

"The frog insists!"

"Since when did you let frogs tell you what to do?"

"MOOP" says the frog.

"I don't know what it is about him, but that frog is totally persuasive!"

Then before either of us can react, a great white heron swoops down, and spears the frog through the body and flies away. We both wordlessly watch it fly off into the distance.

Chung Tzu winds up the chicken bone on the greasy dirty string.

He gives it to me.

"Sometimes if you go MOOP too much, even if its is right --  you can get carried away."


----

Quail Hill
3.10.14

Noises

One night, I’m having a hard time sleeping. I toss and I turn.

In the middle of the night, I hear a scratching noise. I get up and open the door of my bedroom.

“Was that you?” I ask Chung Tzu, who is in the living room, sitting on the couch.

“Not really.” says Chung Tzu.

I close the door, and I lay back down. When I am just about asleep, I hear another noise.

I open the door, and Chung Tzu is there, sitting on the couch.

“Did you hear that noise?” I ask Chung Tzu.

“Not really.” says Chung Tzu.

So I go lay back down in the dark back room, and I stare at the ceiling and my back hurts and I’m tired and frustrated and confused at all these noises I think I am hearing.

Then, sure enough, right as I forget everything and I fall asleep, I get woken up again – it is maddening!

I storm into the living room, Chung Tzu sits unruffled on the couch.

“Why are you here right now?” I yell at him.

“Thank Goodness! I thought you’d never ask!” laughs Chung Tzu.

----

Quail Meadow
March 2014

Shattering

A great huge gust of wind blows. I see a crow flying up high in the sky, almost recklessly. It is almost as sense of shattering -- but I know I do not understand these things. The crow is fine.

I think about Chung Tzu, or Lao Tzu.

-----

quail meadow
2013

Mountain Kissing

"I thought that said 'Kiss the Mountain'. Sounds like the title to a Zen koan or Taoist story." I say.

"Mmmmm." says Chung Tzu.

"You'd need a big pair of lips to kiss a mountain." I can't help saying.

"With a mouth like yours, you'd probably be able to kiss two mountains." says Chung Tzu.

"Yeah, I guess a mountain would really like me. Even two."

Chung Tzu appears to not listen to this, but later I hear him chuckle.


-------

Quail Meadow

Frog School

"Frog School was closed from lack of difficulty." I say, reading from the computer internet.

"Or Frog School was not closed from lack of difficulty." I read.

"Or there is no Frog School." I say, reading.

"When people see something, they want it to be all kinds of things." says Chung Tzu.


----

Quail Meadow