dVerse Poetics: Open Link Night

Today at dVerse, Grace is Pubtender. It is Open Link Night which means we submit any one poem of our choice, any form, any subject. Come and read and find your new favorite poet. http://dversepoets.com/2016/08/11/open-link-night-177/

Sands and the River
I read the news today, oh boy…
monks are visiting Richmond
and creating a mandala at the Holocaust Museum
and then will dismantle the colored sands
and take them to the James to throw them
into the river to represent impermanence.
at first I thought, cool.
and then…..
impermanence, change, transience of things
Mujō 無常
mono no aware 物の哀れ
I don’t need visiting monks from Tibet
dressed in saffron robes to tell me of…impermanence.
The river certainly does not need them
with its water that rises and falls,
freezes and thaws and evaporates
nor does the fish in its depths being plucked
from the water and grasped in eagle’s claws
soon to be food for hungry babies
high in the tree in their one ton nest
as they squabble for breakfast.
I do not need them
as I see mujo woven in my life
and feel the clutch at my heart that
all things…change.
we all live a life of impermanence
feel the wistfulness at the passing of…things.
friends and family who die
the now empty grass under a crepe myrtle tree
the melting of snow
the garden growing from seed and sprouting
and bearing fruit and dying and being spread for composte.
the cicadas singing at night
and dying in the dawn – shells empty and bereft
under the dying pine.
we only need to live
to know…impermanence.
we need to live to feel
life moving through us
life moving on.

SamCat last year under crepe myrtle