Some will tell you,
that we hold a paper flower
in an endless night - who knows?
Some will say
only our dreams are awake
- who can tell?
Do we ride this cosmic river
in a leaking boat,
or are we all the radiance of the Buddha,
already enlightened -
maybe the paper bloom
is note fake aftercall.
Today we see a goat riding a donkey,
Tomorrow that same scraggy goat
is the mighty arch-angel Michael
and the donkey is your mind;
a shining steed
for one thousand more angelic beings.
We don’t have to take one picture
and hang it up forever.
The picture gallery is endless
and always evolving.
Some say that this world is on fire
but then again
maybe we are that refining fire?
Many contend
that it’s possible to see
what others will always miss
or miss what other’s will always see.
Who knows?
A new tongue between old lips,
or an old tongue between new lips;
let your tongue
and lips be strangers.
Perhaps that paper flower
is a symbol of our impermanence,
or just maybe a perfectly created sign
of an ever flowering eternity -
that just might be.
Girl at a Window
Young girl at a window where do you stare,
What is it that fascinates you so much?
You smile a little, for whom do you look;
Whose are those beads your fingers touch?
Are they a gift, a token from another,
Is it he for whom you look, in the street
More enigmatic than Mona Lisa?
Is there some person you wait to greet?
What interests you as time goes by
Leaning, patient over the window sill,
Have you been there, watching, for long and
Will you wait with such attention until
He glances up from the throng beneath?
Pausing when he sees you gazing there,
Red sunlit ringlets and rose blushed cheeks.
And does he recognize the beads you wear?
From the painting ‘Girl at a Window’ by
Rembrandt van Rijn, 1645.
This painting now hangs in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, U.K.
http://www.dulwitchpicturegalley.org.uk
5/10/17