On display in a church in the Swiss Alpine town of Sion, is a sculpture of station of the Cross number 13. Christ, a strikingly emaciated figure, is being taken down from the cross and carried (all too credibly, being the eve of Sabbath) in the arms of a woman.

TIME WARP 

Christ uncrossed,
A wreck of a man.
Borne of a woman,
By a woman,
Fellow-citizen second class,
To his stranger’s tomb.
Christian soldiers would never
Follow this to war.

Yet, touching the untouchable,
She rends top down
The winding sheet of space-time:
Christ carrying Christ.

May 2005

For Jess, our black retriever/collie cross to whom I owe some minor and hopefully transient brain damage.

MEDITATION

 Having no handy lotus
In which to lose the
Me/not me distinction
And find the
Universal ONE,
I tried to contemplate my dog.
“Whassup?” she said.

May 2005

RESCUED

Our Jess is a rescue dog,
But who rescued whom
Is not so clear.

January 2006

The worst thing about having animals is that you outlive them (most of the time). Yet the death even of an animal is a window into these twin mysteries - the difference between life and death and between our cat and any cat.

MYSTERY

Same warm fur
Same bright eyes.
Our cat gone.

January 2003