Two Dreads: Transmission (II)
I wrote this poem in the spring, on the final day of a meditation retreat, called a sesshin, that I joined at Two Arrows zen sangha, in Torrey, Utah. The whole poem wrote itself in my head while I was on a run, so that my challenge was more to memorize as much of it as I could until I got back to a piece of paper and pen, than it was to “think of” the next line. This fast-and-easy writing happens very infrequently. I can’t help but attribute its happening where and when it did to the clarifying, heart-opening effect of the thirty-odd hours of meditation I had underwent in the previous week. I share the poem here as a coda to the last piece I wrote, on the role of fear and dread in my life.
Transmission
I cannot figure out this fucking stick shift.
Everything was fine—then, driving cross-
country, the clutch blew, and I coasted
to a halt in Adair, Iowa, whose yellow water-
tower with the smiley face painted on it is world-famous
apparently. It wasn’t my fault, I told the mechanic,
I’d been in cruise control.
After the repair, something felt wrong.
I couldn’t shift smoothly. Jumpy, lurchy—
clinging, seizing. Now it’s been months.
Am I breaking it in, or just breaking it, period?
Can no one see me stranded here by the side of the highway,
Like a bit of roadkill not yet fully dead?
Now, the Nissan XTerra is a great vehicle.
It brought me so far, to be here with you.
And it’s not that I’m learning—I know how to do this.
I used to know how to do this.
Just one thing helps. Take shoes off.
Feel controls through socked feet. Inhale.
Then these three things in order: first, a bit of power.
Next, and this may be the heart of the matter: gentleness.
