A heartfelt smile gives warmth

enough for three winters.

Mongolian Proverb

Ode on a Mongolian Proverb

an exhilarating, brilliant
Providence fall afternoon.
i slid into tommie’s room
in the aids hospice
to find his former-Marine lover
by his bed
flowers on the table
Tommie asleep …
leaking fluid from his legs
as usual
eyes and cheeks
puffy from meds and edema
breathing unevenly.
i took his lover’s hand
we talked quietly
over all that tommie
was going through ..
and his own stress and depression.
tommie’s eyes opened
he looked at ted
and then at me
and through the utter weariness
and pain that morphine
couldn’t assuage
leaking as it did
out of his bloated and edemic legs
tommie said
hi father
great to see you
light a candle for me
will you?
and then he smiled
the smile of one
who knows Love.
three winters?
no
that smile has filled
my life with light
for near thirty years.

"if it was only me, I'd take it personal."


any sensible person
wrestles
(which does not necessarily
mean fear or panic)
with death.
after all,
we all know deep down
that what the wise
both ancient and modern say
is on the money:
no death, no life.
or, as i once said myself,
“no destruction, no butterfly,
metaphorically speaking”.

a friend wrote to say
that a friend of his said,
upon being asked about death,
“if it was only me, i’d take it personal”.
not only is it very witty,
it’s damned helpful:
strength and solidarity
in the inevitable and common shared experience!
it helps to know that everyone
is in the same sinking boat,
doesn’t it?
but it’s also nice to know
that wisdom on the subject
can float everyone’s boat.
shifts one off the “if i have to go,
we’ll bloody well all go”
to “we can all get through together”.
there’s a lot of negative stuff
among human beings;
some positive stuff
is always welcome.

death: don’t take it personal.

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3:56 AM

it’s 3:56 AM.
well ….. not actually;
dennis keeps the clock about a half hour ahead.
part of some mystery, I assume,
which I can let be.
anyway – metaphorically speaking,

i am awake. but I slept,
after several restless nights of illness.
for an hour I lay there,
the bed was perfect, firm, holding;
except for the low hum of traffic
on route 101 and the ticking of the clocks
it was stillness, quiet.
the pacific breeze from Guadalupe
had begun to drop softly on the bed
through the open window.
minute by minute, my body merged
with it all – and nothing hurt!
the hour went by. i was enfolded.

the buddha says that life is one
and indivisible.
it is the groundstone of his thought.
we human beings imagine these great things;
it is up to us to choose our Path.

i knew the one and indivisible
for an hour, at 3:56 am.
maybe the Blessed One has something!

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heaven

we human beings are
so naïve, so ingenuous,
that after you put aside
our capacity for wickedness
you can only want to hug us.

take, for example,
our childlike capacity
to long for bliss, for utopia,
for nirvana, for shangri-la,
for eden, for perfection,
for heaven in the great beyond,
to believe in them
despite the massive evidence
of experience against.
it is so charming, in a poignant way.

some would say it’s harmless,
this capacity to believe
that we were once perfect,
or lived in a perfect place.
that it keeps us striving, motivated.

i think it misses the point,
the reality.

eden, heaven, all of them,
the utopias “out there”,
they drain Life of its life.
they encourage us to live in fantasies,
they suck the very joy
from the moments in the now,
in mortal time and space
when utter bliss explodes
in every cell.

they aren’t meant to be forever,
these fireworks of perfection,
just moments of wild love,
reconciliation, faithfulness,
self-giving, beauty,
awe,
breaking in and transfiguring
like jesus on the mountain.

i don’t think we should wait
until we’re dead
for heaven in the great by and by
on that beautiful shore
or any of the rest.
I think when we hurt
we should pour our heart out
into the space around us
and be healed.

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