My virgin blog post

Ah...
Emaho! (that's Tibetan for "fantastic!")
Sometimes with a poem I do one more try after many tries without success... so I took that approach now w/getting on our blog.

(Austin, remind me to tell you the missing get-on-blog link that we didn't think of.)

Congratulations, Rae, on your award to Hambidge!

Here's my poem :

Offering the Body: The Practice of Chöd                                                

           

  

The eagle does its day job

feasting on what’s left by crow and vulture.

Anything I’d planned to do is over.

As my head nods its usual consent

to imaginary promises and dreams

my corpse appears before me.

Time’s come to set my mind

to ribbon flesh, chop small, pile it in a dish

made from the cranial bones.

I scout the stinking ground for anything

to start the fire, use my own desire.

The skull cup, on its tripod, enlarges as it heats.

Half-moon on a finger

pokes from the pile of blood and bones

simmering to stew, to nectar.

All who are wise, the ordinary, furred,

obstructors, germs of sickness—

may their bodies, minds, be sated.

From every distance and dimension, beings

afraid, unsatisfied, or blessed, feast to satisfaction—

devils, angels, animals, everyone I owe.

I see no stopping to the world

but there is respite from the demons

that arise daily in the head.

That this ritual could do the same thing twice

—my awareness cuts that thought. O, I cherished

this poor body. I quake. Invite.

Now, knife the ritual words in vast space

reduced to dust                mounded like clouds

clinging            dearly held     to let in silence.                                          

For all that is perceived, flesh or consciousness,

appears then disappears, image in a mirror—

red drop, a fingernail, a ball of hair.