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The Hermit Puts Out A Mission Statement

Posted by Richard Collins | Mar 17, 2025 | Poetry | 4 |

The Hermit Puts Out A Mission Statement

So sense exceeds all metaphor.
– Wallace Stevens, “Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight”

I am no shaman or prophet but
as a priest of an unpopular religion I
have come to the mountaintop to
practice with two or three acolytes what
passes in these latter days for

magic: embracing
the everyday the
miraculous ordinary.
I have no answers for truth seekers
only a few tools and permission to dig deep and
travel wide in the capacious
realms where no parents or teachers have
ventured and no preachers dare spread
their wings because here
sacred and profane merge in the
clear air of the real.

Some prefer the art of the caves of
the Cumberland Plateau where the twilit gods of the
underworld flit with the painted
bats and birds below, but I am one of
those old birds who nest in the stones
on high where the bluffs are
carved with lichened images that
can’t be named or tamed.

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About The Author

Richard Collins

Richard Collins

Richard Collins, abbot of the New Orleans Zen Temple, directs Stone Nest Dojo in Sewanee, Tennessee. Dean Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at California State University, Bakersfield, he has taught at universities in California, Louisiana, Bulgaria, Romania, and Wales. His work has appeared in Religion and the Arts, Sagesses Bouddhistes (France), Urthona: Buddhism and the Arts (UK), Shō Poetry Journal, Think, The Plenitudes, Pensive, Willawaw, and Willows Wept Review. His poetry has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature and a Pushcart. His books include No Fear Zen (2015), a translation of Taisen Deshimaru’s Autobiography of a Zen Monk (2022), and In Search of the Hermaphrodite: A Memoir (Tough Poets Press, 2024).

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4 Comments

  1. Mary Alice dixon
    Mary Alice dixon on March 17, 2025 at 4:03 pm

    Richard’s poem gives us the sacred and the profane in a shimmering collage. The “old birds” who nest in stones where bluffs “are carved with lichened images that can’t /be named or tamed.” WOW!!! Takes my breath away. Radiant work. A wry title, too!

    Reply
    • Richard Collins
      Richard Collins on March 18, 2025 at 8:20 pm

      Thanks, Mary Alice. The original title was the rather plain “Mission Statement.” The more explanatory title turned it into more of a dramatic monologue spoken by a character so that it did not seem like the poet’s mission statement. My Zen teacher was also an old bird, and so the seasons turn.

      Reply
  2. marijo
    marijo on March 17, 2025 at 4:52 pm

    Dear Richard,

    I especially appreciated these lines in your poem:
    here sacred and profane merge in the clear air of the real.

    Isn’t this the true path of any spiritual practice!

    Reply
    • Richard Collins
      Richard Collins on March 18, 2025 at 8:22 pm

      Thanks, Marijo. I think this is indeed, as you say, the true path of any spiritual practice. Or any poetic practice, for that matter, which is one form of spiritual practice, isn’t it.

      Reply

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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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