Zen in you
In you there are no tomorrows parading
before me their long lists of obligations,
their to dos and should dos and absolutely
must dos that turn me into future tense.
In you there is only now, an eternal
now, an endless breathless blinding present
that erases all past and eats the future.
In you there’s no expanding universe,
its horizon running away from me,
no infinite expanse of empty space,
no long cold night where I can lose my way.
In you there is only here, a bright circle
drawn tight around us, a world I can know,
our world of warm horizons we can reach.
With you, in you, two of us glazed with sweat,
two figures here in perfect garden, washed
by rain and gleaming now in fresh sunlight—
we are the sound of one hand clasping life.

Cecil Morris is a retired high school English teacher, sometime photographer, and casual walker. His first collection of poems, At Work in the Garden of Possibilities, comes out from Main Street Rag in 2025. He has poems in The 2River View, Common Ground Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, The Sugar House Review, and elsewhere.