1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Zen Of Housework

I look over my shoulder 
down my arms 
to where they disappear under water 
into hands inside pink rubber gloves 
moiling among dinner dishes.  

My hands lift a wine glass, 
holding it by the stem and under the bowl. 
It breaks the surface 
like a chalice 
rising from a medieval lake. 

Full of the grey wine 
of domesticity, the glass floats 
to the level of my eyes. 
Behind it, through the window 
above the sink, the sun, among 
a ceremony of sparrows and bear branches 
is setting in western America. 

I can see thousands of droplets 
of steam—each a tiny spectrum—rising 
from my goblet of grey wine. 
They sway, changing directions 
constantly—like a school of playful fish, 
or like the sheer curtain 
on the window to another world. 

Ha, grey sacrament of the mundane! 

by Al Zolynas
Al Zolynas is a contemporary poet who practices Zen and lives in San Diego, CA

Next Read Around is September 25, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Covid, catastrophe and collective uncertainty have laid claim to us in a way nothing else has in our lives, casting us in a kind of exile from our lives and a homecoming to ourselves at the same time. No matter how secure we may feel or how much support we may have, it is hard to escape from the wheezy teetering of the world at this point.  Yet, we still need to be nourished by life in order to survive and thrive. So, How can we allow ourselves to be held in the tremulous nature of things? Zolynas’ poem, Zen of Housekeeping, offers a fine solution: immerse ourselves in the immediacy of everyday routines and activities, but with a twist.  

Zen, of course, is famous for the practice of living in the present and directing full attention to whatever act you perform. This goes counter to our western sensibility that we must be masters of multi-tasking, ticking off every box on our to do list daily, working hard and playing hard, and aiming for the top of the heap. Zolynas models the beauty of close contact with the simple act of doing dishes while also poetically casting the act as a spiritual experience. 

This is where his poem deviates from what I understand as the practice of Zen, which strives for presence without the trappings of meaning to divorce us from the moment. Instead, Zolynas turns doing dishes into a holy sacrament. If we can find such deep meaning in everyday acts, we may find a way to transform our “exile” from life into a deeper engagement with life. Poetry is one of the most powerful and most well-suited tools for finding meaning in what seems trivial or mundane and this may be exactly wht we need to bring ourselves back into alignment with life.

Week 24 Prompt Menu

1. Write about some simple everyday act in detail, like making the bed, brushing your teeth, doing laundry (or your version of doing dishes). You can choose whether or not to add a deeper meaning.

2. The word “moiling” means to move around in confusion or agitation. Write about you own moiling—how you move about in confusion or agiataion—in the current circumstances; or write about what is “moiling” in your life, or in your mind or heart at this time.

3. Zolynas begins the poem describing how he looks over his shoulders and down his arms as “they” disappear into the water almost as if he is partially detached from his own body even though he is seeing out of his own eyes. Later he refers to the wine glass ‘floating” to eye level. Describe a simple act from this kind of perspective, as if you are witnessing your body perform it. Of course, you could fully dissociate by referring to yourself in the third person and describing yourself from totally outside.

4. Notice how Zolynas moves from concrete description to metaphor in several instances in the poem. Use this idea in your poem and see if you can sustain a single metaphoric thread running parallel to the practical descriptive thread throughout the poem.

5. Zolynas also moves through various senses in the poem, visual in the first stanza, kinesthetic in the seond stanza, and the implied auditory in the third stanza “ceremony of sparrows.” Smell and taste may also be implied because the context is the kitchen and the reference to fish. Write a poem describing an everyday act that uses sensroy specific predicates in at least three sensory systems.

6. The poem refers to the grey wine of domesticity. Write a poem about how you experience domesticity. What metaphor would serve to reflect domesticity, or domestic chores, for you?

7. What do you see through your window? How does that view change during the course of the day?

8. Write from whatever else in the poem inspires you or from elsewhere in your life.