Limerick about Enlightenment
The Buddha sat beneath the bodhi tree,
And vowed to get enlightened one-two-three.
Mara said who d’ya think you are?
A scholar? King? A movie star?
The Buddha touched the earth for all to see.
It’s All Right
There once was a healthy-as-hell bloke,
Who, despite all the odds, had a brain stroke,
What used to be easy,
Became hard and sleazy,
But he said, “don’t fix, now, what ain’t broke.”
College
Where I’m from, people aren’t
Expected to receive a higher education.
It’s sort of like expecting your kid
To be president: Nice, but unrealistic.
And the walnut trees have their
Trunks painted white, to protect them
Against sunburn.
And there were lots of German Baptists—
Dunkers, as they were called,
They dressed like Amish, but mixed
Better with ordinary folk.
We went to school with them.
Their last name was usually Bauman.
They would wear gowns at high school
Graduation. But not caps.
So every high school graduating class
Would be punctuated by a few of
The gauze prayer caps of those girls.
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Saw this movie last night.
On the big screen, at Coolidge Corner.
Better than I expected.
But at some point the hero,
Trapped in the basement,
And REALLY small,
Which he didn’t like, but had no control over,
Looks out the window at clouds,
And sky, and feels it all worthwhile.
And I was surprised to feel,
I could relate.
Sometimes I Am Happy
The worst thing happened to me.
I used to be smart and strong.
Now I am stupid and weak.
And utterly dependent.
My worst nightmare.
Proving that it can happen,
That it only takes a second,
And that it can be foreseen.
The worst thing can indeed happen,
But there are still many
Reasons I am fortunate.
I am retirement age, after all.
And I have a loving, supportive partner.
And I have my practice.
So things could be much worse.
But mainly I can see that,
All of the above,
Is not to be clung to,
And that makes all the difference.
And sometimes I am happy.
This is not to be forgotten.
Normal Is Relative
Every time I think I’m normal,
I end up in front of the library, crying,
And am, thus, not as “normal” as I thought.
Walnut
When you finally get
That birth and death
Don’t exist, it will be too late.
And really funny,
Though they’ll say yeah, yeah, yeah,
Because it sounds good.
But they won’t really know.
They’ll still miss you terribly,
Or won’t know you’re gone,
And whichever it is won’t matter,
Much. But they won’t know
That it’s the same as a walnut
Growing from a walnut tree.
Just totally natural.
Religion
Before a word was put to page,
There was this thing called Axial Age.
When people woke up left and right,
Religion-free, no agenda’n sight.
But a scripture then arose,
And a lifestyle—one of those.
And a Rule Book then did bind,
Those whose “faith” did cloud their mind.
So the spirit’s revolution,
Became religion’s non-‘volution.
And we are stuck here in this mess,
When we’ll escape I cannot guess.
Isaac of Syria
(Seventh Century)
You said that blessed ignorance,
Was better, far, than “knowledge” thence.
But I say ignorance is bliss,
Only when it’s ever this:
When it’s the great not-knowing kind,
That comes when knowledge’s left behind.
Jo Stafford
(1917-2008)
It’s possible to be “classicly trained”
For sure. But your voice was one of
Those where it didn’t matter.
Because it was one of those that goes
Beyond training, to the place of gift.
Your voice was an angel,
Come down to show us what heaven is like.
You mainly covered songs written by others.
Like most everyone did
In the 1940s. When you had your biggest hits.
But you revealed how beautiful they were.
We had no idea until you sang them.
Academe
No one knows anything.
Some teach it better.
Saint Mark of Ephesus
(1392-1444)
You didn’t give a whit,
What the emperor of Constantinople
Looked like. Or the pope.
But your main concern was in
Showing us what a real Ecumenist
Looked like. And you succeeded.
Not compromising with heretics
(Which is done now all the time.
To preserve the Church’s prestige,
Which you understood, properly, not to exist.)
But simply stating the truth
As you saw it, in the face of what was untrue.
Pretty simple, really.
And though you died in your bed,
In your perch on the Prince’s Islands,
You knew theology was dangerous,
And you would have died for what’s true.
You should be the model for all
Modern theologians. But you’re not.
And now it’s too late. Still I consider
All you did, to be most
Worthwhile.
Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826)
We have a weird, skewed idea of
Humanity. Like we’re all
Supposed to have our own
Rooms. And go to college.
Not to die in a fire, helpless,
Like those girls at Virgen de Asunción,
Some of whom were probably pretty smart,
Some of whom were probably pretty kind,
Or at the hands of your owner, unremarked.
The good life was intended only for a few
White Male Landowners and their Sons.
And though you owned your fellow
Human beings, at least your vision of it
Was a trajectory. And though it leads to big
Fights, it has, at least, made all the difference.
Dorothy Day
(1897-1980)
You were a Catholic-Communist,
When those words could, blithely, coexist.
You realized that, if rightly read,
The Bible said just what you said.
Cleopatra VII
(69-30 BC)
Last of the house of Ptolemy,
Those Greeks of Macedoneny,
That took sister ‘n’ brother to bed,
And other Egyptian customs wed,
Your love, Mark Antony, had such a cost!
The battle of Actium, with him, you lost.
Theodora
(500-548)
You made of sex, no great mystery,
Starring in Procpius’s “Secret History,”
You married Justinian despite the growing hype,
You were the Power-behind-the-Throne’s great archetype.
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