This audio recording features a poem reading by Marcia Rose Monet Refuses The Operation by Lisel Mueller and Shoveling Snow with the Buddha by Billy Collins
Poem Reading: Monet Refuses the Operation
BY LISEL MUELLERDoctor, you say there are no haloesaround the streetlights in Parisand what I see is an aberrationcaused by old age, an affliction.I tell you it has taken me all my lifeto arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,to soften and blur and finally banishthe edges you regret I don’t see,to learn that the line I called the horizondoes not exist and sky and water,so long apart, are the same state of being.Fifty-four years before I could seeRouen cathedral is builtof parallel shafts of sun,and now you want to restoremy youthful errors: fixednotions of top and bottom,the illusion of three-dimensional space,wisteria separatefrom the bridge it covers.What can I say to convince youthe Houses of Parliament dissolvenight after night to becomethe fluid dream of the Thames?I will not return to a universeof objects that don’t know each other,as if islands were not the lost childrenof one great continent. The worldis flux, and light becomes what it touches,becomes water, lilies on water,above and below water,becomes lilac and mauve and yellowand white and cerulean lamps,small fists passing sunlightso quickly to one anotherthat it would take long, streaming hairinside my brush to catch it.To paint the speed of light!Our weighted shapes, these verticals,burn to mix with airand change our bones, skin, clothesto gases. Doctor,if only you could seehow heaven pulls earth into its armsand how infinitely the heart expandsto claim this world, blue vapor without end.
Poem Reading: Shoveling Snow With Buddha (by Billy Collins)
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wokyou would never see him doing such a thing,tossing the dry snow over a mountainof his bare, round shoulder,his hair tied in a knot,a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the wordfor what he does, or does not do.
Even the season is wrong for him.In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?Is this not implied by his serene expression,that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?
But here we are, working our way down the driveway,one shovelful at a time.We toss the light powder into the clear air.We feel the cold mist on our faces.And with every heave we disappearand become lost to each otherin these sudden clouds of our own making,these fountain-bursts of snow.
This is so much better than a sermon in church,I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.This is the true religion, the religion of snow,and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,I say, but he is too busy to hear me.
He has thrown himself into shoveling snowas if it were the purpose of existence,as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear drivewayyou could back the car down easilyand drive off into the vanities of the worldwith a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.
All morning long we work side by side,me with my commentaryand he inside his generous pocket of silence,until the hour is nearly noonand the snow is piled high all around us;then, I hear him speak.
After this, he asks,can we go inside and play cards?
Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milkand bring cups of hot chocolate to the tablewhile you shuffle the deck.and our boots stand dripping by the door.
Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyesand leaning for a moment on his shovelbefore he drives the thin blade againdeep into the glittering white snow.
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