Dharmavadana

Three Poems from Retreat If you could only admitthat there is nothing betweenyou and the Horsehead Nebula, no difference – the way the atomscurve through, the way mostis empty space, and all forms of lighton all wavelengthsare in there and in you. * Sky above,fields either side of me,path beneath my feet With a shout of joyI walk between them all * I am not different from the unconscious stars,the clouds that blot them out,the grass, the trees in veils,this hut, the steps in front of it, my pillow. No different from the fire in the wood burneror the candle flames swimming beside meon the table. I can’t understand myself,never will. I am not. No childhood, no adulthood,no future. No sorrows, no dreams.There never were any. Look,I’m already gone. I sleep the sleepof one who knows he was not created, ever,and is not here to die. Dharmavadana is poetry editor of the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona (http://www.urthona.com/). His own poetry has appeared in the magazines Haiku Quarterly, Brittle Star, Ambit and in the anthology The Heart as Origami: Contemporary Buddhist Poets (Rising Fire Press 2005), as well as previously in the Buddhist Poetry Review. He lives in London.