POETRY AS ORDINARY PRACTICE - O. John Brown Now, there are some poems that tell you things in a story: This is a house and a yard. This is what your childhood was. The willow trees, water flowing, three seasons. To miss someone And over by the chair, the cane your grandmother used. And the doorway out And some poems , well some want you to dance with them. You like the fast ones. But the best move up close and slow, and sway their gentleness into your heart, where it shows. Some, to be honest, are not easy friends. You laugh when you should be crying, and vice versa. But you go on with it. You don’t show them to your friends, they have no clothes. Or the clothes have no discovery. And some take you, clean and simple, like the right woman at a Fair, without baggages, without images. Or with an image that dissolves as sudden as a whisper - and leaves you there. And some just look at you, like you some kind of translucent grape. And in spite of the calendar, the stars, the car repair, the roses, the hunger and fears, the lilacs, the essential loneliness, the awe, the music of the spheres, tropical forests and your mother’s voice You see in all their eyes yourself, still green in a golden room, holding the pen that you are writing with, that everyone gave you, that no one gave you. - John submitted this poem to Metaxy, a poetry magazine published in 1993. John was a close mentor until he reached the end of his direct teaching cycle to start a new cycle as a student. Like a brilliant diamond, John’s essential intelligence showed many facets to those who crossed his path, and this piece encompasses many of those facets. It spoke directly to me, about those facets, and the basic grounding that brought all this together in one being, one heart. What an absolute pleasure it was to have know this being and to have studied under this heart for even the briefest of moments.