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Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
the end of suffering
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Hearing the bell
I let go of all my afflictions
My heart is calm
my sorrow ended
No longer bound to anything
I learn to listen to my suffering
And to the suffering of others
When understanding is born in me
Compassion is also born
–Thich Nhat Hanh
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Sunday, August 11, 2013
Friday, August 9, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Sunday, August 4, 2013
requiem for a friend (excerpt)
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I have my dead, and I have let them go,
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation. Only you
return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock
against something, so that the sound reveals
your presence. Oh don't take from me what I
am slowly learning. I'm sure you have gone astray
it you are moved to homesickness for anything
in this dimension. We transform these Things;
they aren't real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Obituary
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Just once, you say,
you'd like to see
an obituary in which
the deceased didn't succumb
after "a heroic struggle" with cancer,
or heart disease, or Alzheimer's, or
whatever it was
that finally took him down.
Just once, you say,
couldn't the obit read:
He got sick and quit.
He gave up the ghost.
He put up no fight at all.
Rolled over. Bailed out.
Got out while the getting was good.
Excused himself from life's feast.
You're making a joke and
I laugh, though you can't know
I'm considering exactly that:
no radical prostatectomy for me,
no matter what General Practitioner
and Major Oncologist may say.
I think, let that walnut-sized
pipsqueak have its way with me,
that pebble in cancer's slingshot
that brings dim Goliath down.
So, old friend, before I go
and take all the wide world with me,
I want you to know
I picked up the tip.
I skipped the main course,
I'm here in the punch line.
Old friend, the joke's on me.
—Ronald Wallace
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