Red Room Where the Writers Are

Issue/Publication: Anthology Of New England Writers (#16) (HM; Robt. Penn Warren Free Verse Competition))

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Samsara

Almost 20years later, I find the Buddha.
I know him instantly. Each of us has aged,
lugging around our bellies, and I, too, am bald.

I see him through the window. Even at night,
six horizons from home, even through a sheet
of glass in sheets of rain, I know him instantly.

I know how the Buddha was broken. I go in
and tell the man how the Buddha was fired
from the dense, black clay of the Barton River,

his cracked glaze an accident of temperature.
I tell the man the Buddha’s mostly clay and glue;
tell him that the Buddha, shattered, has fallen

time and again for the same reasons; fallen,
time and again a foolish, foolish Buddha.