ON NOT BEING HERE AT EASTER

 ON NOT BEING HERE AT EASTER

                   for KLP

This will be different than your birthday poem

at 20, Kate—that one, so much fun. Yet

listening to you on the phone today

talking with grandma, my tear ducts

emptied at the sound of your voice.

I’ll write, I said. I’m working on an old

word, vocation. Tom Merton, monk,

calls it our work: deep interior.

Your reading tonight from the Dharmapada.

Practical stuff saying, Thrive.

Buddhas only point the way.

Vocation comes from the divine,

a summons. What you do

as a way of life. If I say anymore

mystery disappears. Over the phone,

I remember saying, Be our roshi.

Love, Grandpa

31 March 2026