|
Maybe the Buddha understood it best,
Desire's the root of all our disappointments,
So relax, calm down, and accept your fate,
Relinquish all desires and meditate.
But then I rather think we westerners
Would find no satisfaction in that route.
We stretch for goals and strive to wrestle angels,
We weigh results and tally up the scores.
We seem to feel that life should offer more,
And worse, we sore regret what we have missed.
We blame our natures, goad our future selves,
Make sick our spirits for our consciences' sake.
Sometimes I relish in my disappointment,
Squeezing its roots to find the inner sauce,
I grimace as I suck its bitter flavor
While savoring the vile and sour bile.
On my deathbed I'll neither know nor care
If no one reads my scribbled shards of verse.
Are poets, when dead, happy they're in print?
Or are regrets, too, carried in the hearse?
Somehow that thought does not fill me with dread,
My soul's repose is certain when I'm dead,
Last words can't be rescinded nor resaid,
I'll find my satisfaction now instead.
|