Dublin in July

Their foul exhalations, wearing ads For Women on the Verge ofHRT And images of lissome men and women Vacationing in Portugal and Spain. Whatever I was thinking when that siren Erupted from the din, its two notes blaring, Was gone before I knew it, leaving only A quick impression of a speeding engine, A red-faced driver screaming out his window, The heads and shoulders of pedestrians Turning to watch the swiftly passing show. Where is the stillness at the heart of things? Where the silence? Here in the midst of movement, My own unquiet mind pursuing Dogen s Notion that the hungry, angry self Advancing toward the world creates delusion, I listen for that stillness and that silence, As though they might be heard in horns and sirens.