Free: Poetry in Time of Pandemic

Look inside for this and other poems: Insight Journal, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies: 

 https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/article/when-i-could-do-nothing-buddhism-and-the-practice-of-poetry-in-a-time-of-pandemic

FREE

We want to be free.

It is so easy, really:

Come and play in the rain

No need to fear time

Let's climb trees

and swing from branches

We may abandon ourselves to the world

Leave our shoes behind

Run and laugh until day lies down

And as darkness falls

Jump up

To take the place of stars

💥

The Closed Book

 

The Burmese Mermaid realizes no one may open the book; in this case, read this blog. But it's quite alright. Words have their own mysterious existence. Written words don't need a human other than the author to create the mark. But I suppose a writer has a deep desire to share a perception, an experience, of what it means to be alive in the world. Stories guide us on our way home, providing light. 

I once got swept under the pull of Mother Ocean. So great was the roar and crash that I couldn't speak. So deafening was the world that I couldn't think or feel, it seemed. But the will is strong to rise to the surface and that is what I did eventually, gasping for air and saying out loud, "I want to live."

A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman. 

Joining Gold

 

K I N T S U G I

There’s no guarantee you won’t break.

Coming into this world as you did:

Your own perfection

as yet unknown to you

and all the days ahead

Unseen and unfelt

Living in the moment only.

 

As consciousness grew 

a blooming cloud 

became rain 

and then falling

Unstoppable, the gravity of your life

became irresistible.

 

There was never a guarantee

That in falling you would not break.

You could have been certain of it

as inevitable

as land fall

the solid earth

Supporting your tenderness

 

Is this how we grow you ask?

Seeing the broken places

filled with gold?

Resistant to further splintering

Shards held together

By precious veins

Joining all the beautiful pieces?

 

8.29.2020