  SOEN'S DRAGON  There are some things we know  before we had words to tell us  we knew them.  We are fastened to them  though they are not fastened to us.  Remember once April hills held the snow  and field stones were warm in the sun.  I basked like an old dog  and found a newt dead by my foot.  It's with me now.  The eye sockets are empty.  There is nothing inside.  How did the body survive the winter?  How did it escape  the birds and small animals  to die there,  dry, perfect in each detail,  whole down to the last brown toe?  As we clutch and breathe  the smoke of sublimation  I hold this light of emptiness  in my hand.  ON BECOMING A MONK  No one behind. No one ahead.  Just this place and point.  All escape routes end here  and the maps proved useless long ago.  The thousand disguises are in tatters  along the road behind.  Out here, vast emptiness -   the life-cries of the world's lost billions.  Just these guides  in the containing silence:  a thrush at dusk, a star at dawn.  Who puts his foot down again in the dust?  Whose foot again and again, ceaselessly?  BOWING  _ - for Shinge Roshi and the sangha of Hoen-ji_  In this empty house  I have thrown  all the windows open for you.  Upstairs in the irreligious dark  nothing remains  to whisper as you approach.  Come, play here now,  each in your shimmering exactitude -   spring rains, flowering lilacs,  countless birdsongs.  