Warrior for Peace


Merely by resting in your heart
you soften one thousand miles
of space around you.
Those who come near you feel
a touch of wild cotton,
the radiance of seven pearls
threaded on a sunbeam.
Their souls begin to
orbit your belly button.
They enter the invisible garden
of Presence
and somehow taste the blood-red seeds
in the pomegranate's core
without gashing the husk.
This is why you learn to repose
in the golden shrine of your chest.
Let others make the haj
or fall upon the sword.
You just need to be more hollow.
Victorious the mind that no longer seeks
because it has dissolved into
the erotic splendor of the void.
Let your next exhalation be
what pours from the libation cup
offered by a dying warrior.
The triumph is surrender.
Now let a death-song swell
your throat, like his, in a voice
that is yours and not yours,
as smoke curls up from a wick
just blown out.
Return to the lips of the one
who says, “Well done!
Did no one ever tell you?
That breath was the name of God."


Sculpture: Dying Warrior, Temple of Aphaia

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