Here is an easy assignment: hike into the hills, and consider the acorn. Each one, when picked up and rubbed in the fingers, is a miracle - the fine gloss, the subtle blending of colors, the pleasing shape, the great oak magically folded within. And each oak produces many thousands of acorns. And the hills are covered with oaks. The mind falters before such prodigality of beauty.

In recent months, I have begun a most elementary study of Zen, a “way of being” that has intrigued me for many years. I am particularly drawn to the spare, unforgettable poems of Zen masters, which crystallize transcendent moments of observation:

There in midnight water,         The woodpecker searches         All crying done
Waveless, windless,               for dead trees                            Nothing remains
The old boat’s swamped       amidst the blossoms                   But the shell of a cicada
With moonlight
             --Dogen                       --Joso                                      -- Bash

While savoring these wonderful verses, I have been confounded by the Buddhist precept that such perfect awareness must be coupled with perfect detachment. Why should we seek to break the connection that these poets so skillfully create? How can eyes so gifted look on the world with dispassion?

An inkling of the answer to these questions was left to me by the one-eyed nuthatch as it disappeared into the fog.