House Special After the Storm Has Passed

Day after day, I’ve talked to no one,
but am not lonely,
as if I’ve gone mute with a begging bowl
into the streets and everyone was television.
A small helping of chow mein,
a sip of sweet and sour soup.
What more do I need?
Mindfulness,
the Buddha said over and over,
each segment of a tangerine,
every glance or taste.
Everything I own, owns me,
the view of Spring as it merges into summer,
the silence of it,
the rock, the heron, the bamboo hut
with no one about to call out in my seeing.

 
--Dick Allen