An apple a day and a penny saved
Neither borrower nor lender and always check for ticks
I knew all the famous rules
But chaos was my guide
I waited many important years
For my heart to explain itself
In the meantime I mastered
The origami of longing
I once saw the Buddha's ineffable eyebrows up close --
Nothing but tiny little hairs --
And lived tumultuously
In the urgent and insistent now
But that was then
Banana slug
The saffron-robed banana slug
Inching ever-closer to emptiness
When a pair of heavy-booted
Demons of dualism
Come lumbering along the trail
Nearly squashing the shiny little seeker
Underfoot
Picking it up then
And moving it off the path
Back to the world of down and up
Miles from nirvana
Bionote
Buff Whitman-Bradley has had poems published in many print and online journals. He is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently "The Next Small Thing," and four nonfiction books. He lives in northern California with his wife Cynthia.
Buff, I hope you see this. I just turned 58...and for all my life, I have remembered a poem i read when I was a teenager called "Drunk on a bicycle" that I just loved...about a guy pedaling home at night, through the suburbs, talking to Buddha, with this bike going "hmmm squeak hmmm squeak"...I was talking with my husband (just-married!) about it a few months ago, and was just going through a box of "treasures" from my childhood...and -- !!!-- one of the 'treasures" was a chapbook called "WPA 2" that cost 25-cents that was published by the Palo Alto Cultural Center (in those halcyon, pre-PC days...sigh). And I just ran in and read it aloud to my husband (who was a zen Buddhist for years, studied with Alan Watts, etc.). He is also a poet -- and he just loved it. As did I. It is even BETTER than I remembered. So, I just want you to know that for...oh, 40 years, one of your poems has graced and enhanced my life...and for that I thank you most sincerely.
ReplyDeleteCheers, S. Leigh Fry