Report #30 - 7 Sept 2009

This week's poem, “Sweeping Sünyata,” was published in Saginaw Songs (Ridgeway Press, 1999) and comes from working and living at the New Amadore Apartments on Saginaw's Eastside. I ended up there after coming back to Saginaw from a month or so of wandering throughout the British Isles until every last drop of my money was spent on every last drop of Guinness. I called my friend Bob Maul and said, "I need a job and a cheap place to live." He said, "The Amadore for both." He ended up giving me my often-gifted "poet's discount." I worked about 12 hours a week and paid nothing.

Part of what I did was getting apartments ready for new tenants, and it was during that activity that I found myself sweeping the hardwood floor of #206, thinking about all the people who had lived there since 1929. Who were they? What were their stories? Their dreams and loves? Their fears and failures?

The Sanskrit word "Sünyata" is a Buddhist term meaning "emptiness" in the sense that the true nature of any phenomenon or entity, as an independent, permanent reality, is non-existent. Everything is interconnected. I, alone, and you, alone, are empty. Like St. Francis said, "It is by dying to Self, that one is born to eternal life." Like Harry Tuttle said, "We're all in this together, kid."

This week's music is from the Dexter Gordon album Doin' Allright: "For Regulars Only." This album features Gordon on tenor sax, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Horace Parlan on piano, George Tucker on bass, and Al Harewood on drums. You can read the liner notes here.

Listen to the Report #30 here:
Report #30