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Koan

Posted by Daniel Skach-Mills | Aug 18, 2026 | Poetry | 0 |

Koan

Openness—
comes with age, loss, acceptance
that what finches find,
beak-blessed
beneath the boxwood
is enough.

Quiet too,
is just me growing down
to where silence
like Zen
leaves me speechless,
words: small
and reticent as a wren.
Less chatter
to perch on
at the feeder.

Hard to figure,
this country’s refusal
to land lightly as a linnet
in the sturdy nest
of wanting less.
The liftoff from self,
easier than we imagined:
the sound of one hand flapping,
or a turkey’s fanned hand
of winning cards—
a wingbeat, perhaps?
A koan?

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About The Author

Daniel Skach-Mills

Daniel Skach-Mills

A 2026 Pushcart nominee, Daniel Skach-Mills’s poems have appeared in Feed the Holy, Sojourners, Sufi (Featured Poet) The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Century, and Amethyst Review. His poems are forthcoming in Wild Roof and The Pensive Journal. Daniel’s book, The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems, was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist. A former Trappist monk, he lives with his husband in Portland, Oregon, where he served fifteen years as a docent for Lan Su Chinese Garden. Daniel was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2024.

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The Braided Way is a framework to see every faith tradition as a strand, braided into a larger whole of spiritual awareness. In the Braided Way, combining spiritual practice from various faiths allow us to explore sacred experience and wonder in forms that resonate with our personal spiritual needs and sacred intuitions. In today’s culture, many people shun religious dogma, but yearn for spiritual connection. The Braided Way allows the ceremonies and practices of multiple faiths to be available without the confinements of cultural dogma.

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