Big Sur Hot Springs Inn 1966

I shiver In the cold
water porcelain bathtub,
prepared for the plunge.  
Neal’s in the hot
water brick tub with a jar
of peanut butter in his hand.  
We’re perched on the trembling
lip of the Coastal Range.  
A cut in the cliff spouts hot water,
sprinkling the salty Pacific.
Neal prays to the blessed spread.

     Would this be a better butter if it weren't peanut butter? 
     Peanut Being befits a butter such as this.  
     How are we to know?
     The taste will tell us so.  
     I know by the spoon,
     the spoon that dwells within.  
     and scoops without.  
     Does the spoon improve its Buddha Nature?  
     Its better Buddha Nature?  
     O Amitabha, we salute your peanut butter
     on your way to sundown in the pure Pure Land.

Then he stood up naked in the tub
and hurled the jar as far
as it would fly, out
into the restless Pacific.