When we moved in five years ago, the bottom of this tower block was painted red, so daishin named it the Baboon. We have been happy living here, and we are happy to leave.

This evening I reread Sam Hamill’s poem The Orchid Flower. I corresponded with him for years, though we never met. He is among the people who have died whom I cannot bring myself to delete from my email contacts, for reasons I do not understand. When he died in 2018, I wrote this poem:

I wonder if what those who make Zen our lifelong practice have in common is that when we are young we experience what John Tarrant Roshi describes in his book Bring Me the Rhinoceros: “None of the usual solutions to life that were on offer meant much to me.”

For two years, I lived on the edge of woods, on the outskirts of Chattanooga, Tennessee, between a sewage plant, an American Indian burial ground, and the state mental hospital.

This evening, I have been rereading passing through by Tom Leonard.

Despite the denial, it is hard to be unaware of death if you pay attention when you walk around Glasgow.