Microcosm
“Middling”
Someone recently asked me what I’ve been up to.
I replied, “Middling.”
“Meddling?” they said with surprise.
“Nope. I gave that up a long time ago.
Middling — The Autumn Years, as in midlife.”
Being an astute querent, they asked:
“And what does that mean to you?”
Suddenly I got very clear.
Not the foolish child I used to be,
no longer driven by young-man-energy,
yet not quite the wise man of years I hope to be.
And with that, I closed the brushwood gate
until the Earth Rooster crows.
“Cosmic Seppuku….#9”
I hear the echo
out there in the forest-moss,
moving under the wide open fields of moonlight.
I feel the flowing sap in maples,
the tumbling scales of the trout
loving her watery heaven.
The crescent of the moon cuts me open.
Out spills all my unlived dreams.
image: Moon Over Wasatch, Nic Y-C
“First Instruction of Gentleman-Scholars”
If his mat was not straight, he would not sit on it. - Book 10, Verse 7, The Analects, Confucius
Whether Confucian, Shinto, or Zen,
the first instruction of would-be gentleman-scholars
is the same.
Make your bed.
All things of heart-mind proceed from there.
image: sleeping chambers / “Hidden Mountain Hut”
“Glide”
Tonight
out there
in the billowing salt wind
gulls are diving
scooping up a small sip
of the Great Infinite
into their beaks.
It only takes one sip.
image: Carlos Gomez
“Matsukazezake” (Pine Wind Sake)
As Lady Night Lantern
dips below the horizon
she whispers:
Come frolic with me in the dark
where the ten-thousand things are made.
You will see every unknown expression of yourself
reflected in the Dark-Enigma.
When you befriend them all
you will return to the world
as if a fierce burning rainbow.
image: Shortleaf Pine / Yanping Ma
“Mandara Blooming”
It’s really quite simple.
Each of us
is a lotus
sent here to bloom.
image: Lotus / Kumiko Shimizu
“Just One of Them”
I lived an ancient life once as an old widow.
I ate satsumas and enjoyed my warm sake.
You could always find me in a patched up hanten (winter coat) — even in summer,
plucking cucumbers from the vine.
A humble bamboo fence surrounded my dwelling.
Vast wars were fought all around me.
Inside my small enclosure
was a gate to the Pure Land.
image: “New Moon Over the Brushwood Gate” / unknown artist / Japan (1405)
© 2026 / Frank Inzan Owen / The Luminous Procession: Poems From Within and Beyond the World of Red Dust
soundworlds: “Namu Amida Butsu” & “Bamboo Heart” / The Space In Between / Bronwyn Kirkpatrick
“Cosmic Seppuku….#9” -- whoa. And ouch.
You've transported me once again, brother Frank.