(For Barbara Luszczki, d.1June01)

That's it! the shock of rust hair exploding, one foot on the edge, calf, thigh belly, breast, and then the distortion time, experience, thought, feelings ripped through and tightened closed a split second of clear awareness followed by silent explosion rust-gold shock covering eyes floating down to floor yellow remnant recollection slowly wafting into green stalk blue sky this woman's life in that portal now passes into freeing form into emptiness finding liberation out from choking hold of hatred, desire, delusion -- those three causal chains of repetitive addiction we call our needs, someone else’s children not recognizing our voice, our touch, feral needs lurching into our body saying 'this is mine!' Her hair always seemed too much for her head leaping out from hardhats, bandanas, jacket collars until finally of a Friday night said That’s it and exploded with her out of the suffering she worked so hard often but not completely to lose -- today, what is lost is our loss also not complete, as nothing is complete at our hands Sangha, Dick said, she needed sangha, community in there, in that jail cell on Friday nite, perhaps on every night stretching back thru Belfast, South Thomaston, Portland, and other map dots throughout Maine. She needed other women to take her hand, rub her back and say "aren't they shits, deary" and "doesn't this place suck" and "don't fret, we'll help you through this first night, and tomorrow, even their weak coffee and bland fruit loops will taste passing ok." That's what she needed -- a good kvetching, a comforting soul who doesn't try to make it better but who are themselves best for company given in passing. And isn't this what we all need -- a sangha, a community of real women and men who know some things suck, some things sweeten, and most things can be stomached if we practice one of three mantras handed on with an ancient crude but kind wisdom, the three mantras worded: 1."what the fuck" – 2. "are you shit’n me? – &, 3."we'll be fine!" Those three jewels of our common suffering, our common life! And we will be fine, all of us -- Barbara, her sons, her friends, her shock of rust-yellow hair. We turn from despair with time & care. Nothing perishes, not really, at least not without our letting it go to perish. She leaves us this. She leaves us our lives. She leaves us as we are, gathered here. We 'll think twice before letting her go from our memories. We'll think twice before trying to follow her the way she went off from us. And in our pausing ponder, we'll have begun our practice. The practice of looking. Looking long. Looking deep. Looking love. Looking weep. Seeing all that passes   in our sight. Seeing “All will be well.”* Just like this, in passing & staying behind -- All will be well. Reading that Buddhist line on Tuesday night: Leaving us nowhere completely with what is.** So here we are!  Alone with each other! And when we speak of Barbara, we pray, and say: All will be well! This is what we long for… This is what we tell.                                                                                                        (wfh, 6June01) …………………………………………………………………………………………….. *      Saying of Julian of Norwich, Mystic **     Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Note: Perhaps “nowhere” might best be spelled “no-w-here” for our meditation – suggesting the closeness of two readings of the word: no-where, and, now-here.) wfh