"Misty Banks At Eighty"

My carunculated chin, slow wag
Of hazy epiphanies, sags, the patch-
Work grid of veins blue onionskin. Caught
In a poking sun through frosted
Window, I stretch the black hairball-spotted robe
Like a shroud over my V-necked hair shirt
To freeze out memories of a Romantic
Bodhidharma in China blocking the man who,
Six weeks in wind and banked snow, pounded
The door of the fierce Indian spike of stone,
And, no answer, no answer, cut off
His own arm and set it by the locked latch.
"Come in", from within. Nine years facing the
Wall, patient as sun on stricken birch leaves
Quivering in concert under the hawk's
Erasing curve.