As a writer I sometimes need a prompt or a trigger to compose a piece of writing. A recent book, Postcard Stories, was my response in verse and prose to one hundred colour postcards. A new, unpublished book, Slender Volumes, is comprised of 300 prose poems, one prose poem for each kōan in Zen Master Dōgen’s 300 kōan collection, the Shinji Shōbōgenzō. At the moment I am writing a poem for each of the forty-eight kōans in The Gateless Barrier, a Sung Dynasty collection known as the Wu-men Kuan in Chinese and the Mumonkan in Japanese. I know this collection well as I have worked on the cases (kōan can be translated as ‘public case’) with my teacher, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede. ‘The Toaster’ relates to Case 24 in The Gateless Barrier, ‘Transcending Speech and Silence’:

A monk asked Master Feng-hsüeh, ‘Speech and silence are concerned with equality and differentiation. How can I transcend equality and differentiation?’
  Feng-hsüeh said,

   I always think of Chiang-nan in March;
   partridges chirp among the many fragrant flowers.

In response to the monk’s philosophical question, Feng-hsüeh quotes two lines from a T’ang Dynasty poem attributed to Tu-fu. Likewise, I quote two lines by Rainer Maria Rilke at the end of my poem; this is the link with the kōan. Instead of being trapped in duality (speech/silence, equality/differentiation), Feng-hsüeh brings forth two lines that are close to his heart, revealing his true nature as well as the natural world of birdsong and flowers. Zen Master Wumen, the compiler of The Gateless Barrier, criticized Feng-hsüeh in his commentary on the case: ‘Why does he rely on the tongue of an ancient poet and not cut it off?’ But here Wumen has his own tongue firmly in his cheek. Feng-hsüeh was intimate with the quotation, and it is from this of place intimacy that the kōan unfolds. Our own ancestors could recite entire poems by heart; the words were woven into their own fabric. I wonder if this is something we have lost in our digital age.

The reader needs to know nothing of this Zen background to appreciate ‘The Toaster’. In fact, the trigger for the poem came when I observed that our toaster was beginning to burn pieces of toast. This observation is tied into the overarching issue of climate change and the transitory nature of each of us on our overheating planet, echoed by the lines of Rilke at the end.

Also, embedded in the mix, is my appreciation of Iain M. Banks and his wonderful Culture novels. I left science fiction books behind at the end of my teens and then returned to them when I began to read Banks. He once observed that, unlike a film director, a writer has an unlimited budget for special effects. So, my toaster can become an AI drone, a companion and even a consigliere, helping me to navigate this complex world.