CASTLES IN THE HAND

I  carry  my castles in my  hand
     and work on them the best I can.
Can I work  through them,
Or will I arrive at the other side
     in pieces,
Patched,
     and barely breathing?

I serve
     at the incubator of dreams,
Where I wear my bondage
     like a tight chemise.

I built the life that made me
     what I am.
But it split me open,
     and then was gone.
I have the freedom to do,
     and the freedom to fail.
This travail leads me on
     to seek new lives.

2.

With the master of ceremonie
    I shoot the breeze
"Who is this being,
    if you please?"

If the Lords of Karma
     can find steeds to please them,
So  I can win a rhyming game
     with time,
This one time,
     and claim this life as truly mine.

But here are my trademarks,
     which I have neither traded
        nor unmarked.
They announce themselves
    in the storehouse of  the planets,
And crack like fractals
     everywhere,
Like eggs,
      within the womb of time.

                                       

3.

An alchemy of gluttony
    and debauchery may await me.
Will I have the temper to weather
     my impulses,
Or will they wear me out?
I  will choose the proper
     planets and signs,
To best align my possibilities
     within  the new houses of my life.

Will my lessons tempt me,
     or will they mend me?
Will my memory desert me
     past this  life?
Will I collapse my many lives
     into this one,
And seek to balance a fortress
     upon a single reed,
Which will shred into its threads,
Each a strand of a life
     that was?

In this life,
      we may  lose ourselves
In the hall of mirrors,
But we may find ourselves
Where we least expect to be,
     see  it all,
And seize it all,
     the secret alchemy
Of our destiny.
 

---

   
Home I Back I Next

---

by Paul L. Dolinsky
Copyright Paul L. Dolinsky
All Rights Reserved
pdolan@taconic.net
buddhistpoems.com