Category: Poetry

  • The Buddha’s Masterplan

      JANUARY 21, 2017 PURELAND SUTRAS Beneath the sea of glistening stars, Between the ethereal evening air, Lies a forest of glowing dreams, But as diverse and rich as they are, None escape the same Moonbeam. Under the lucent morning glow, Roll waves of raving emotions, Turbid fortunes and cruel woes, The burning craving of…

  • Sikkim (haiku) Sequence

    (Written by Maeve O’Sullivan on the month long retreat with Donal Creedon and Ringu Tulku Rinpoche at the Bodhicharya Retreat Centre, January 2017) waxing wolf moon lighting the road to our retreat  *** less cloudy today first sight of Kanchenjunga  *** thunderclap! the new prayer flags get their first blessing  *** walking meditation… the cream-coloured butterfly…

  • When You Are Old

          When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;   How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love…

  • Buddha at Kamakura, by Rudyard Kipling

    Buddha at Kamakura O YE who tread the Narrow Way By Tophet-flare to Judgement Day Be gentle when “the heather” pray To Buddha at Kamakura! To him the Way, the Law, apart. Whom Maya held beneath her heart, Ananda’s Lord, the Bodhisat, The Buddha of Kamakura. For though he neither burns nor sees, Nor hears…

  • Buddhist Poetry

      The past is already past. Don’t try to regain it. The present does not stay. Don’t try to touch it. From moment to moment. The future has not come; Don’t think about it Beforehand. Whatever comes to the eye, Leave it be. There are no commandments To be kept; There’s no filth to be…

  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

    Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.…

  • Three Poems: Cicely Gill

    At the Market ‘This was last summer’: she holds out a bouquet of dried flowers – woundwort, oregano, lady’s mantle. ‘They will keep their colour for ever’. Lavender, totter-grass, helichrysum. Names have their beauty too. ‘Grown from seed in my garden’. Statice, straw-flowers. Light in her hand, sunshine incarnate.    Not Just Haiku Not just…

  • A Heartwarming Holiday

    WISHING YOU AND YOURS A HEARTWARMING HOLIDAY    Holy is the breath of each sacred day, rising through the mist of Creation into the bright plains of sunlight, coursing through human bones and being, consecrated in circle of family, friendship, community; penetrating soul in baptismal rivers of faith; ships of endurance, fleets of fortitude, sails…

  • To Waterfall

    To Waterfall Hills playing games in the mist, “now you see me, now you don’t”. White clouds part – a flash of blue, then close – a curtain pulled across the sky. Brambles nodding in the breeze wisely agreeing. Rowan berries peak out from leaves Nature’s hide and seek. Wind through trees rustles and rushes…

  • Two Poems by Angus Ogilvy: from Lights in the Constellation of the Crab

      Cartography Following the old maps, he arrived just where he had planned to be. The landscape conformed to interpretation: that hill, those clumps of trees, the village gathered around the bridge. He saw the things he’d expected to see, given the forecasts, the time of year: the lone fox and the raven falling.  …

  • Leaving Vigo

    With sad and friendly eyes she answers yes when I ask if Santiago trains are on. Seventy-five fatalities, or more: un accidente horrible – she nods. A message wishes us a pleasant trip, the carriage has an eerie muffled mood, its notice says 130 km per hour, we read our newspapers and phones, subdued. I see Camino pilgrims…

  • PRAYER FOR NEPAL

      Bhaktapur. Kathmandu. Lamjung. Shermatang. Lean closer. Can you hear the soul of Nepal? It whispers. Cries. Prays: Our heart lies buried in the rubble, in stones turned to sand. Oh, humanity, come to our time of fire! Lift every stone. Lay your hands upon our valley. Dig with us. Dig as we retrieve our…

  • Letting Go of Ávila

    I could have travelled there today, could have walked its medieval walls and lit a candle for the vulnerables in the Basilica de San Vincente. I am letting go of the eagle caves, the cathedral, and the Monasterio de Santo Tómas, but most of all, the Convento de Santa Teresa, housing her ring finger, and…

  • Splenomegaly

        The body has a lump.   The lump is growing.   Just under the rib cage on the left side reaching down.   A torn muscle; too many sit-ups rippling my abdomen.   And yet no pain. No pain at all.   And weight loss too. Yes.   But no surprise after all…

  • LAYMAN P’ANG, LINJI YIXUAN, HAKUIN EKAKU

    Well versed in the Buddha way, I go the non-Way Without abandoning my Ordinary person’s affairs. The conditioned and Name-and-form, All are flowers in the sky. Nameless and formless, I leave birth-and-death. Layman P’ang (740-808) Layman P’ang    If you want to be free, Get to know your real self. It has no form, no…

  • The Combat

    It was not meant for human eyes, That combat on the shabby patch Of clods and trampled turf that lies Somewhere beneath the sodden skies For eye of toad or adder to catch. And having seen it I accuse The crested animal in his pride, Arrayed in all the royal hues Which hide the claws…

  • Reunion

    Cornelian, brown; Columban, blue; Marian, red; Patrician, green; these four houses we walked through in uniforms of gaberdine. This new experiment, co-ed, had bad boys twanging our bra straps; ’70s posters showed sunsets from glorious Technicolour snaps, and told us to make lemonade when life served up that bitter fruit. But her drink’s stronger, our…