Wisdom #2 – 1984

By Kathy Perlman

Since how many lifetimes has a year gone by

When we didn’t meet in some fine meadow

In the clear air of April?

Not yesterday or any other day this year

Did you, in your red silk dressing gown,

Slap my shoulder and ask me those questions

I could not find to ask myself.

 

On New Year’s morning I knew it was you

By the sound of sunlight moving through the grass,

The afterimage radiance of a butterfly,

The dense loam under my feet,

Holding the odor of rain.

 

I recognize you in death even more

Than in this life you left–

That wind moaning down the valley is your breath

Collecting in the channels of your heart.

That blur of stars above the forests

Are your luminous shoulder joints,

Gliding in their sockets as your countless arms

Encircle me, this small, dark child

Dreaming on the wheel of night.

 

Only your special magic could call us,

One by one, hours after your passing

To witness these miracles of your holy body,

Speech and mind growing unhindered

To fill the infinite container that now holds you.

 

There were rainbows scattered

In the eyes of those who loved you,

Milk lakes in the gentle speech

Of those who pronounced your name,

And offering goddesses dropped clouds of yellow roses,

Oozing nectar, to where you holy body had been

And now, the bricks removed one by one, was gone.

 

So accustomed to searching, I am startled

To find that you are always here,

Above my head or in my heart,

Uncovering memories I could never,

Til now, quite remember,

So that my whole life suddenly is laid out straight

Under the white light of day.

 

I will do all I can, precious Lama,

To reveal your simple truth

To this grieving world, the way the iridescent

Patterns of a moth’s wing repeat themselves

In the soft bronze glow of lamplight.

 

Hold us in your loving embrace

And light our minds with your luminous fire,

So that we may increase your special magic

For all mothers who we have learned to love

As dearly as you have loved us.