American Zen (Verse)

Took a chance ran to
My cabin through lightening -- odds
Against satori.

That's a selection from Bill Heyen's poem "Sake Gold," part of a new anthology, American Zen. Here's an update from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I think the first intimation of what Zen might be came to me in the Beach Park branch of the Tampa Public Library, when I picked up a copy of One Hundred Poems From the Japanese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth. I still have the copy I bought a few days later. It's somewhere in my younger daughter's room. A few days ago, she asked me for some interesting books of poetry to read, and the Rexroth was among the titles I gave her. The words move onward.