recently,
i heard one of my favorite poems of emily’s
offered at the end of a dharma talk..
moving me as it always does to quivers up my spine
and melting glaciers in my eye pockets..
if i could stop one heart from breaking,
i shall not live in vain;
if i can ease one life the aching,
or cool one pain,
or help one fainting robin
unto his nest again,
i shall not live in vain.
it brought to mind straightaway
words from santideva’s treatise -
a guide to the bodhisattva’s way of life..
may i be the doctor and the medicine
and may i be the nurse
for all sick beings in the world
until everyone is healed..
may i be a protector for those without one,
a guide for all travelers on the way;
may i be a bridge, a boat and a ship
for all who wish to cross the water.
then...
i rascally remembered a poem of billy collins :
TAKING OFF EMILY DICKINSON’S CLOTHES
first, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.
and her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.
then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer's dividing water,
and slip inside.
you will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.
the complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century america
is not to be waved off,
and i proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.
later, i wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, i cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.
what i can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in amherst
that sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.
so i could plainly hear her inhale
when i undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset
and i could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.
& emily once more ...
because i could not stop for death –
he kindly stopped for me –
the carriage held but just ourselves –
and immortality.
all this the mind unwinds, unfolds....
a search engine ruffled up
for coupling the variances of being human..
to sculpt a life in poetry - the poetic life -
& construct a bodhisattva’s practice
of the six perfections ..
it is the great sun that finally removes
the misty ignorance of the world,
it is the quintessential butter
from the churning milk of dharma.
the perfection of generosity ~
dānapāramitā
we each have the opportunity to give
the lightest, most refined offering..
the gift of recognition, appreciation..
by our words, a gesture, a deed..
of acknowledgment .. of presence..
to the presence of another..
we exist..we are alive..although it be brief..
we share and bear witness to humankind..
all generated by this rich butter of compassion..
karunā
if i could stop one heart from breaking,
i shall not live in vain;
if i can ease one life the aching,
or cool one pain,
or help one fainting robin
unto his nest again,
i shall not live in vain.
