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

Essential Knots: Lao Tzu Says Don't Be Sad

I learn 5 essential knots. When I get home I want to show them to Lao Tzu, who is sitting on the couch and petting one cat with one hand, and the other cat with his other hand.

"Here is the 'bowline' and here is the 'larkshead'" I say, "But I can't remember the other three essential knots."

"And the 'bowline' I just made fell apart. So I don't know the 'bowline' after all." I confess.

I feel very down that I couldn't tie 4 of the knots.

"Don't be sad." says Lao Tzu, smiling, still petting the cats, "If there were bows here to tie lines on, you would know how, and do it."


----

Osseo

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

Lao Tzu by the Grass

This morning, just after dawn, Lao Tzu is by the grass. He is by the pond with a flock of geese. They are all looking over the water.

I go downstairs to see him, with a cup of tea. I have to excuse myself past several of the geese, but they tolerate me.

"The grass is cool and wet on my feet." I say, as I give him the cup of tea.

"It stays that way almost all day, until the sun warms it." says Lao Tzu quietly.

"I meant to say 'good morning', but I said what I felt instead. The grass and the cool water on my feet."

Lao Tzu smiles, blows on the tea. "Few speak what they feel!"



***

Morning
By the Pond

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

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

Lao Tzu Says "Not really."

"I have no discipline when it counts, and I am infinity capable of deluding myself." I say to the air.

"Not really." says Lao Tzu, petting the cat.


>

Mt. Saddleback Has No Snow

"I know what I'll write!" I say.

"Yeah?" says Chung Tzu. "Mt. Saddleback has no snow."

-----

Irvine
Winter 2013