A p p a rt i t i o n

Lucy saw her first
I said she couldn't be real
our mother there just walking
Lucy goes running after her
along a wall, crosses
to the other side

Now I take up the search
looking out across
excavated but unbuilt
sunken construction site in
the old neighborhood—
the "lot"
Dump for some
Playground for us

Then I see her, clear as day
She’s walking with me
I can't believe it
someone says "There's a lady there."
See? Take a picture, please
Take a picture

Just as someone is
about to
A man steps between
me and the camera
silently
No pictures
You can't
I won't let you
It's not real, his
word is final
I wake up

Why not?

Filling Holes in China

It came in a dream
a few big rectangular holes

when we dug as kids
we thought we’d come out
on the other side of the world
in China

Earth isn’t a big crusted hollow ball
it gets more varied
the deeper you go
water caves, shores of colored stones,
fire—Journey to the Center of the Earth

drinking coffee in the courtyard
unspooling, navigating on riprap
the floodgates open: these are
not just any holes—
they’re graves

Turkish detective Behzat shovels dirt
on the grave of his new wife, Esra

My parents’ graves, side by side,
Yamada Roshi and his wife
two great trees alongside
each other, deep roots intertwining
shade and comfort for travelers

Gone my parents, buried
Filling it in like lightly tamping
freshly ground beans
in the stove-top coffee maker

Like Behzat, watering
the dirt grave of Esra
Turning to leave, he finds
something he wanted her to have

Returns and thrusts his hand
into the still loose dirt
his fist pushing into
the grave, up to the elbow
releases his grip
An act of defiance

Leave the earth loosely packed
Flowers and weeds can grow

the water needs to flow through the coffee grains
to get the full flavor.

He reaches all the way down
to touch her again
To find her, again, to defy the filling
to keep finding her

The Weight of Love

In the night,
with birds singing, and full
moon shining through the door,
I'm lying in bed in the studio, up
the terraced steps, above
the LA din,
a low
breathing, sometimes snoring
right next to me,
a smell,
a warm presence, undeniably here

I drift back
into sleep
and then, out of nowhere
bomph!
Is it the sky falling?
No, old Lab Gus has simply
rolled over
and made himself
comfortable on me

our chests are rising and falling
breath on breath

What is the weight of love?

Walking with crows and swallows and falling leaves. Sitting with mountains and rivers, the earth, the moon and the stars.

Joseph Bobrow is the founder and Roshi of Deep Streams Zen Institute in Sherman Oaks, CA, where he teaches. An author, activist, and psychoanalyst, he has long been integrating Buddhist practice with Western psychology to create communities that transform individual and collective anguish. Among these, a rural cooperative school for young children, an educational and support program for divorcing families, mentoring and meditation groups for incarcerated teenagers, and reintegration retreats that mobilize the power of community to help veterans, their families, and their caregivers transform the traumas of war and find peace.

Joseph tells the story of his integrative work and its applications to building peace in Waking Up from War: A Better Way Home for Veterans and Nations, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama. Joseph’s first book was Zen and Psychotherapy: Partners in Liberation, with comments by Thich Nhat Hanh. After Midnight: Selected Poems, Joseph’s first collection of poems, was published in 2017.

Joseph practices psychotherapy in Studio City, CA, and teaches widely.

More on Joseph Bobrow's work can be found on our Links page.