Wesak (Buddha's Enlightenment, Full Moon In May)

 

 

Don't worry, restless cricket.

Don't worry, dragonfly

who can't get quite still

on your sunlit cattail.

Don't worry, implacable

circling hawk, skittish rabbit,

obsessed politician.

Nor you, sleepless seed,

smoldering all Winter 

with desire.

I have surrendered on your behalf.

I have immersed you in the beauty

of this breath.

 

A bud cannot imagine what a petal is.

The apple was the pain inside a flower.

Neither stamen nor pistil, leaf nor pollen

have any "I" who can say, "I am a rose."

Therefor enjoy your voice, O you 

who have been selved!

 

Your ego is beautiful.

It speaks for those who cannot.

You are the song of a wanderer 

heard in a dream.

Let there be no outrage 

in the space between your thoughts,

only a well of compassion

healing the darkness around you

for a thousand light-years.

 

Now listen to the stream

of nectar oozing up your root.

Be a scarlet poppy royally adorned,

dancing in the meadow of your body 

with a troubadour whose lips

are parted, but whose name

is never quite spoken.

 

The time will come when gazing is fire.

When you see beyond the night

and burn away the most intimate veil,

the gossamer difference 

between inside and out.

Then the moon is only the moon.

The cricket delights in rubbing its wings.

Your silence outshines singing. 

 

The time of the fallen apple will come,

sweet juices bubbling in the sun.

That was the pain inside the flower.

Now the worm appears.

All that remains is a hole.

Yet we need holes to fill with music.

Dear friend, in all that vanishes, still,

you can taste the one clear sap.

Call it sorrow. Call it joy.




 

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