Incarnation

This morning, before giving a Dharma talk, I was having breakfast with my attendant…I paused and said to him, “Dear one, do you see the cow on the hillside? She is eating grass in order to make my yoghurt, and I am now eating the yoghurt to make a Dharma talk.” Somehow, the cow will offer today’s Dharma talk. As I drank the cow’s milk, I was a child of the cow.

Thich Nhat Hanh, p.117, The Heart of the Buddha’s teaching.

It blows frontal locks,
enters in past other purposed hairs of my nose
and exits on the bottom of my tongue,
like a gleek. As I watch leaves waving
in the trees; a little close. The ones far away
in my sight stayed still. The flag salutes
simultaneously, all by the same force.

The finished swinging children
watch spinning, churning in wonder
observing robotic servants
compared to brute physical
forcing soapywaterandcloth mix
slodging against rippled stone
causing thinned wear, rips, tears
two hours tired; forming forearms
´´Que Rapido!´´
they fascinated.

“The water looks like a waterfall,”
belongs to pictures only;
they settle for sewage streams
that carry my stains to
grey rapids down below;

mimicking

the rivers that pulse through me.

An elevated oversized ant hole is used
as a soccer field. Posts; whatever is available.
One kid’s neon yellow shirt catches the setting sun
drying my and radial neighbor’s hung clothes;
a multi-leveled kaleidoscope.

A man carrying maize as a hat
lunges up one dirt exposed bank
protected slightly by select patches of grass
and even fewer existence of trees,
fruit and wild alike.

Up is a tentative oasis,
marked by cell phone towers;
down: stacked upon glued together
houses wherever an empty space
on the old garbage mound.

“Donuts, Donuts” trumpets to all those
in dilapidated circumference; a mom requests
her daughters presence
across the ditch, echoed
by ten. Birds exclaim to their lovers
about the flowers that fought to vibrant.
Nails aim to create structure,
the foundational rhythm to it all;
“No Woman No cry” provides their soundtrack
to Tegucigalpa's amphitheatre.

A wasp explores the metal fence,
my protective lens
to the dueling mountains:
those visibly untouched
and those turned into poverty’s museum.
The clouds, being no discriminator
floats and encloses around them both,
by heaven’s version of
what flows through my lungs.