Poem for Daido

It was everything really
The sound of the snow as I shifted from foot to foot.
The air sharp, thin and cold
The white pines long arms reaching skyward
Needles turning in the wind.
The chanting.
Fire in the stone pit
The smell of char.
The burned paper notes of remembrance float
Around me
In the wind:
they are passing through the needled branches of the white pines,
black moths
set free.
In memoriam, John Daido Roshi
2009
~Caryn Silberberg

Photo by Ba Rea