Dharmavadana
Across the lake
a holy congregation of pinesawaits an answer
but the water’s sparkling childrendistract me.
Behind me the laneseeps on through the valley.
A beech tree’s shadowpasses like a radius.
Holmewood Park
That afternoon a pathled past a council blockoff Brixton Hill to
a triangle of grasswith a flowerbedand bench.
I stopped,aware of a tug, a wishat my chest
and noticeda sky full of lightthat breached the world.
It had no name or voice,no words, no suchimposition or weightiness.
It was no ‘who’,and no questionfitted the case.
I sat on the benchin front of the flowerbedand basked.
Thank you for your poem
which I read this afternoonas I lay on my bednot because I was illbut because I was indifferent.
It took me past the wallsstuck with flower-patterned paper,away from the sentinel presenceof a blank computer screen,
away from the booksmounting in hope,beyond the memories of the night’sTV-obeisance
and internet-haunting,gasping like a fish for new images,beyond the drapesand net curtains,
out where the sky spinsand the trees roarand even the dim autumn lawnis a spanned palm of welcome.
Dharmavadana’s poems have appeared in the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona, the magazines Magma and Smith’s Knoll, and the anthology The Heart as Origami: Contemporary Buddhist Poets. He has been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order (formerly the Western Buddhist Order) since 2005 and lives in London.
a holy congregation of pinesawaits an answer
but the water’s sparkling childrendistract me.
Behind me the laneseeps on through the valley.
A beech tree’s shadowpasses like a radius.
Holmewood Park
That afternoon a pathled past a council blockoff Brixton Hill to
a triangle of grasswith a flowerbedand bench.
I stopped,aware of a tug, a wishat my chest
and noticeda sky full of lightthat breached the world.
It had no name or voice,no words, no suchimposition or weightiness.
It was no ‘who’,and no questionfitted the case.
I sat on the benchin front of the flowerbedand basked.
Thank you for your poem
which I read this afternoonas I lay on my bednot because I was illbut because I was indifferent.
It took me past the wallsstuck with flower-patterned paper,away from the sentinel presenceof a blank computer screen,
away from the booksmounting in hope,beyond the memories of the night’sTV-obeisance
and internet-haunting,gasping like a fish for new images,beyond the drapesand net curtains,
out where the sky spinsand the trees roarand even the dim autumn lawnis a spanned palm of welcome.
Dharmavadana’s poems have appeared in the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona, the magazines Magma and Smith’s Knoll, and the anthology The Heart as Origami: Contemporary Buddhist Poets. He has been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order (formerly the Western Buddhist Order) since 2005 and lives in London.