"WILD ROSE. WILD ROSE."

Dick Allen (1939-2017) was an amazing poet of formalist inclination and Beat heritage whom I was lucky to bond with at the end of his life. Most astounding to me was the late combination of his formal mastery and his Zen practice, most extraordinarily seen in his marvelous final book, Zen Master Poems. At the end of the poem below, after a serene, almost bored survey of our views on death, the Zen master explodes with an ecstatic italicized embrace of organic life: “Wild Rose. Wild Rose.”

Dick Allen

Ten Years, Fifteen Years

Ten years, fifteen years,

hours from now, minutes from now,

I’ll leave the world.

The body that contained me will fall,

but the wind will blow across Thrushwood Lake,

some child will be laughing.

It’s the old familiar plaint, isn’t it?

You live a little, you die, the world goes on.

It’s the old familiar observation.

Did you write a sonnet?

Did you stand on your head and wriggle your toes?

Did you eat apricots?

Did you hold in your hand

red leaves and green moss?

Wild Rose. Wild Rose.

From Zen Master Poems by Dick Allen (Wisdom Publications 2016)