Three Poems from Retreat
If you could only admit that there is nothing between you and the Horsehead Nebula,
no difference – the way the atoms curve through, the way most is empty space,
and all forms of light on all wavelengths are in there and in you.
*
Sky above, fields either side of me, path beneath my feet
With a shout of joy I walk between them all
*
I am not different from the unconscious stars, the clouds that blot them out, the grass, the trees in veils, this hut, the steps in front of it, my pillow.
No different from the fire in the wood burner or the candle flames swimming beside me on the table. I can’t understand myself, never will. I am not.
No childhood, no adulthood, no future. No sorrows, no dreams. There never were any. Look, I’m already gone. I sleep the sleep of one who knows he was not created, ever, and is not here to die.
Dharmavadana
is poetry editor of the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona (http://www.urthona.com/). His own poetry has appeared in the magazines Haiku Quarterly, Brittle Star, Ambit and in the anthology The Heart as Origami: Contemporary Buddhist
Poets (Rising Fire Press 2005), as well as previously in the Buddhist Poetry Review. He lives in London. |
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