BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Children at play give personalities to lifeless objects, and we don't need to give up that pleasure as we grow older. Poets are good at discerning life within what otherwise might seem lifeless. Here the poet Peter Pereira, a family physician in the Seattle area, contemplates a smiling statue, and in that moment of contemplation the smile is given by the statue to the man.
The Garden Buddha
Gift of a friend, the stone Buddha sits zazen,
prayer beads clutched in his chubby fingers.
Through snow, icy rain, the riot of spring flowers,
he gazes forward to the city in the distance--always
the same bountiful smile upon his portly face.
Why don't I share his one-minded happiness?
The pear blossom, the crimson-petaled magnolia,
filling me instead with a mixture of nostalgia
and yearning. He's laughing at me, isn't he?
The seasons wheeling despite my photographs
and notes, my desire to make them pause.
Is that the lesson? That stasis, this holding on,
is not life? Now I'm smiling, too--the late cherry,
its soft pink blossoms already beginning to scatter;
the trillium, its three-petaled white flowers
exquisitely tinged with purple as they fall.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) by Peter Pereira. Reprinted from "What's Written on the Body" by Peter Pereira, Copper Canyon Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006
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I love this poem, because it hints at just one lesson the Buddha gives us- of becoming objective. Life is as much drift and flow and purposeful navigation as needed, but to balance we have to step back and smile.
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I was pleased to read this poem and to have the link.Though not Buddhists Mom raised and to believe in looking into all religions and always we had a large,smiling golden Bhudda in our home.Perhaps he smiles eternally to show us the beauty of being able to smile,that to be content within the self is a oneness that allows the persona to radiate from within.
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When accompanied by the commenter's linked piece. We can't but wonder of the short sided hallow observers take on religious diversity. I personally didn't see merit even in humor in this piece I'm afraid.Although the author did seem to find an obscure revelation of sorts given in his observation of the statue of the Buddha.
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A wonderful piece . . but
Hi Kevin
Sadly there are different views and situations on Buddha –
Try reading this old poem of mine –
I cant help but wonder what would be said if people went around knocking the heads off of statues of Jesus . . .
http://allpoetry.com/poem/457108
Albert.
http://allpoetry.com/poem/457108
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