In One Lifetime – a poem by Daryl Muranaka

Amethyst Review

In One Lifetime

I.
We don’t bleed to be born.
We bleed our mothers
and implant ourselves
in the world
as a seed waiting
for a bird to swoop down
and swallow us whole.

II.
Being a father
means learning
that you would
burn the whole world.

Does God want us
to peer into the dark
to touch the thing
that we fear most?

And because the world is
what made him &
what he made of it
and because she
says caring is sharing
he encourages his daughter
to hit him. And he slips
the blows fluttering in the air.
Not getting hit is better
than hitting, and a swing
and a miss is so infuriating.
Such is the world: slippery
when not even wet.
And this is the vanity
of wanting to attain
Buddhahood in one lifetime.

.

Daryl Muranaka lives in the Boston area with his wife…

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