[3 mins reading time]

Koan: Kei Sho Ko [Count-Stars-Sky]

How wet it was.

The fire ants were moving, they were aligned,
Biting and laughing they leapt aboard, jumping from the levee grass,
To burn and blister feet and limbs, and soon out in the swamp,
On the rising waters of the bayou, water switched to save,
Each refinery and factory, acrid on the Mississippi River,
The ants had seen this before, so formed up a treadmill,
The colony became a ball, their turning planet brought up ants for air.

A heron was gliding on a tangled mat, there was snake and alligator,
Amongst the roots of old growth cypress, water brimmed above a wooden bridge,
It flooded house and hunting cabin, out on Bloody Bayou,
The sky was bright yet strained, vehicles nose to tail,
Facing north away from seaborne storm, red lights flaring in the gloom,
You have to get out of the coast, urged the anchor once again,
That’s right, on some people slept without a troubled dream,
While in abandoned homes, beds lay chill and desolate.

The man when younger, had stared upward from an ornate garden,
Counting all the stars, the frogs singing from the swamp,
A discourse from the dinner host, had become a form of welcome,
There was never such a thing, your myth of global warmth from oil,
And anyway what was so wrong, about a coast undone,
By flood and hurricane, the thirty poorest parish names,
Drowned at nearby delta, claimed forever by the good sea god,
For in the gulf were finest rig and vessel, and sacred treasures on the seabed.

Since that time another piece of sky, has fallen from the spiral castle.

Before dawn the day after another storm, the same moon was bright,
Across the floor of his distant home, and outside the robin still was singing,
A red heart that beats, a thousand times a minute,
Many a farmer in the old country, would never want one in the house,
This dark-eyed bird was known, to foretell death by flighting in the kitchen,
So the girl and boy stood beside the bayou, counting stars and citing constellations,
And all the world began expanding, there’s one there’s another one,
Stars forevermore, that shone between their toes.

All the lights sparkled, and still there were,
Some things talked about, some things never,
Well there’s a star, in the spinning mill of heaven,
Look, there’s another one.

Jules Pretty

[Kei Sho Ko]

Commentary on Kei Sho Ko [Count-Stars-Sky]

Sometimes it seems impossible to find the words to bring together people with distant starting points. The passage of time and place has had no heft.

This koan suggests counting stars, for this will cause time to go on expanding. It will let the world catch up, expand the grain. Go towards the sign that has been put up: no trespassing. What we can share is this: beauty in common things, in nature all around. Counting stars between the children’s toes is another route out the pain of imprisonment.

The inconceivable could happen. You might see a ball of fire ants spinning to escape the flood.

There it is. Another star.

And this counting, at the very least we can do this together.