Richard Collins
Still Lifes Everywhere
I don't want to be out of this world, I want
to be absolutely in it, all of the time.
— Lucian Freud
If you think about it but not too much
there are still lifes everywhere
everywhere there is life it is still.
If you don't think about it too much
but observe, quietly, without fanfare
there and there and there is life, still.
There is the dog on the carpet in front of the window
its paws on your feet, positioned just so as though
he knows he is being immortalized in paint or photo
in art or in your heart.
But first you must be still yourself
still enough to be alive to what is still life.
Bio
Richard Collins is a Zen monk who lives in Sewanee, Tennessee. He has taught at universities in the US, Wales, Romania, and Bulgaria. His recent poetry appears in Alien Buddha, The Crank, MockingHeart Review, Northridge Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Think, Urthona, and Willawaw Journal. His books include No Fear Zen (Hohm Press, 2015), and In Search of the Hermaphrodite (Tough Poets Press, 2024).