THE ZEN OF A XENOPUS
Dear God, hear this frog
From an African bog,
I am croaking my Worship and Dread,
I'm without teeth or tongue
So plain words can't be sung:
I'll just slobber zen "koans" instead.
I'll applaud all You've planned
With the clap of one hand,
And give praise to your name with a jump,
And like trees that are downed
When nobody's around,
I'll land without making a thump.
Zen frogs all insist
One can't claim to exist,
So much less can one's praying be heard,
To catch something to eat
We can jump 40 feet --
But a leap of faith still seems absurd.
But "koans," we
find
Do enlighten the mind:
We kill Buddha whenever we meet him!
So if you're a frog
From an African bog,
Though God's absent, it's still wise to greet him…
from the forthcoming book Prayers of 100 Animals A to Z, by William Cleary
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