January Oracle (edit)

[TranquillityBase]

January Oracle

I throw the wheat pennies,
record the broken & unbroken lines
of the hexagrams:

A ravine.
I must follow it to the end,
like a stream, navigating rocky outcroppings
& filling the low places
until I can move on.

Beyond the ravine, a meadow
where dragons have fought.
I step over the splashes
of yellow & black blood.

I stand on the shore of a lake,
before me, in a cloudless sky,
a mountain reaches to heaven,
& to judgement.

January Oracle 

A December diagnosis
and a long wait for answers
except for the dire prophecies
of Internet soothsayers
and the secret police of symptoms.

I throw my wheat pennies,
calculate my corporeal future 
in the broken or unbroken lines
of a pencilled hexagram:

I find myself in a ravine.
I must follow it to the end,
a stream, navigating rocky outcroppings
and filling the low places
until I can move on.

Beyond the ravine, 
I come to a meadow
where dragons have fought.
I step over the splashes
of yellow and black blood

and into the nephrologist’s office.
No oracles here, only a plastic model:
a set of technicolor kidneys,
and the eyes and voice of a specialist.

I’m his puppet for the moment.
I dance to his queries,  
and he is satisfied.  I come away
carrying an indulgence
retreat back into doubt.

It’s strange, but I’m disappointed.
A two month interval 
absorbing my mortality
has left me desiring nothing more
than the next question.








January Oracle

I throw my wheat pennies
calculate my mortal future in broken
or unbroken lines.

I find myself in a ravine.
I must follow it to the end,
like a stream, filling each ragged hole
so I can move on.

I have no map
only the I Ching
to withstand the delusions,
the jagged walls of this path.

Beyond I traverse a meadow
where dragons have fought.
I step over the splashes
of yellow and black blood.

I close the book. I’m  left standing
on the shore of a lake,
before a mountain’s struggle with heaven,
and the question of the next second.




Waiting to See the Specialist

Conversational zen
is what I need to get through
this ravine, enough magic
to follow it to the end
a stream, filling each ragged hole
so I can move on.

I have no map
only the I Ching
to withstand the delusions
the jagged walls of this path.

I throw my wheat pennies
calculate my mortal future in broken
or unbroken lines.

The Ching never fails me 
as I traverse a meadow
where dragons have fought.
I step over the splashes
of yellow and black blood

into a time of waiting
waiting for the approach of an end
and a way forward
past the merciless lights 
of the specialist’s eyes.