Poem & Koan

Unmake Me

In half sleep it came
with an untidy jolt
that before anything else ought to be contemplated
I must
unlearn—

all that I hold
all that I know
all that I have invested
treasured and venerated

language and words
art and sensibility
sacred and the profane
indeed—
how I stand, how
I take my place in
the order and orientation
of all things created

the clay pot that I am
in a long line of vessels
is taken up by an unseen hand
dropped

in a heartbeat
shattered

in front of my own witness
I knew then

the worst
and the best
all the rest

have yet to come.

~~~~~

So I am to be unmade, broken into pieces and reconfigured into a new design for a ‘new’ vessel, as I was once before. Or so I thought… Perhaps this is how it goes, how we are renewed, life after life, life within life. Remembering still the pain of dismemberment the last time, I can only pray that this time, it might mercifully be a process less protracted, IF I can surrender to it with less of a fight, and more stillness.

Ready. Set. Stop.

___________

A koan for myself:

What would I say, if I meet myself face to face?

How did you sleep? Did you
dream about me
as I dreamed about you?

May I?

greet you
with hands that arent’ my own
behold you
with eyes never opened before
arrest you
with a heart more tender
than the one I’ve always known

You see,
I’ve kept the best
the truest
of myself
for you

just for this moment

when I knew
that I would meet you
beyond the veil
chronos into chiros

again and again—

in the faces of
strangers that
I meet.