TIME AT THE TRACK

If the best is yet to be,
Can blessings not be?

Song cycles wind down till spring less.
Can they rebound without song?

As with song, so with people.
Plainsong is best song,
    is lost song,
    is song declined,
        and undomiciled.

2.

Where do arrows go
When they are sent without a quiver
    into the heart of song?

What are these arrows,
    where do they come from,
        and where are they going?

Time is a recyler
    and we are borrowers.

3.

Antinomies:

Time is a line,
    the time line,
        the lion-tamed line.
His roars are trained
    to coincide
With the arrival of trains
Into the stations
    of our dreams.

This is our lion of choice.
When his voice answers our calls,
We become as one.

But time is also the noose,
    the slayer of our dreams,
A nay-sayer,
    soothsayer of delights denied,
    of joys and instincts
        unsanctified,
A trivializer,
     a  tranquilizer.

4.

Time is the church mouse
    at heaven's gate,
From heaven sent,
    yet to heaven bound.

Time is the great wound
    which washes our smaller wounds.

Yet, the final wound of life
    is in the womb of dying

A spirit sprints,
A body spurts,
And proceeds to birth.
Another birth,
    muttered words on earth,
Muddied trails and tales,
    entrails,
And entreaties
    to no avail.

Yet, to tell the truth,
The tell-tail tracks of life go on,
Past blind bends
    and pitiless amends

And life passes by the slayer
    of dreams,
And leaves him in the dust.
 

---

Home I Back I Next

---

from Reissues, New Issues - 1997 Poems on Buddhist Themes
by Paul L. Dolinsky
Copyright 1998 Paul L. Dolinsky
All Rights Reserved
pdolan@taconic.net
buddhistpoems.com