BUDDHIST CHRONICLES

4

Prajapati

I loved Siddhartha as my own
my sister’s child, suckled
at my breast

but I saw him always
for what he was

a prince
shielded by garden walls.

He had never known death;
even the flowers …

This is the third in the suite of narrative poems, the Buddhist Chronicles. Rahula was Siddhartha’s young son, born after his father left the family to seek enlightenment. If you missed the first two poems in this series, you can …

This week’s Sunday Poem is the second in a nine-part narrative series – the Buddhist Chronicles. (If you missed the first poem in the sequence, you can read it here.)

I’ve long been fascinated by the story of Siddhartha, …

This week’s Sunday Poem is the first in a nine-part narrative series — the Buddhist Chronicles. I’ve long been fascinated by the story of Siddhartha, of his life as a man before he became the Buddha, the Enlightened One.

The …

Post Mortem

This is my father’s child, Mother. My
half-sister, Marguerite, here
in this photograph. I know you are angry,
but bonds of blood compelled me here.
I had to see her; could not will her
into non-existence, as you …

SERENADE

Feet planted in mud, cinnamon silt and sand
I rise to you through wavering green water.
Through blooms of algae, tangled weeds, I rise
unfold in the arbor of your tendrilled sun.
I rise, sweet breath of life, to …

All you yearn for is held in trust
for you.
Press your roots deep
into this loamy earth, drink
from underground tributaries.
Go in and down instead of out
and up. Spirit
is not separation. You are sacred–
your body…

Dancing with Resistance

is a slow waltz with a great gorilla. Hot, scratchy.
A sweaty, fumbling dance that tastes like copper
pennies. That exhales a bitter breath.

I cannot see.

His shoulders fill the world, and I cannot see.

Those …

In the country of the heart the baby rabbit sleeps
shaded by Eagle’s wings
sheltered from noonday sun

Fierce and tender held
in the same thudding heartbeat
the pulse that carries, the beat that rides

Surging sea and star-flung sky…

Make a great circle
A hundred feet around.

Drop in it all the things
that scare you.

Fly into the air
five hundred feet

a thousand feet.
Higher–ten thousand feet.

Ten thousand feet.

E x p a n d to …