Encouraging: Making Peace with Craving

What’s the matter
With craving?
Leave the poor thing alone!
Why pick on the passions?

Yearning can even be fun
Or at least no trouble,
If one makes no bother
Over it,

Because, hey,
It’s just desire
And quite ordinary;
It doesn’t mean to annoy,

Just notice
And enjoy!
It won’t be long
Before it’s gone

And then
What will you do?
It’s up to you,
Isn’t it?

Or is it?
Are you in control?
Really?
Wow!

You’re way ahead of me, then,
You lucky duck,
You fortunate one,
Or maybe not,

Perhaps, you’re merely deluded
Or I am, or more than likely both!
Either way, it’s all okay
Unless it isn’t, in which case,
Hopefully we’ll see better soon.

Encountering: Continuation

At every curve,
I lose my nerve,
I balk
Whenever I feel blocked

And then I look for reasons
But after that
I laugh because
I know there is none!

There are only
Various expressions
And repetitions
But no explanations

And yet,
Explanations are integral
And irrelevant;
“Pardon?” You say.

And I agree,
It’s absolute nonsense
And you should
Turn the page immediately!

I’m only saying this
For your own good,
Depart at once!
And save your sanity!

I’m lost already
But if you run very fast
You may perhaps
Get away,

Before you catch
Whatever it is I’ve got
And become terminally awake
Or as mindfully nutty,
As a Buddha-shaped fruitcake!

Encountered: Is-ing

Sometimes
I get this funny feeling
That everything and everyone
Is everywhere, and always has been
And always will be.

And so, what we speak of
As death,
Although it is real,
In a way it doesn’t matter

And yet, in a way it does.
It’s so difficult to say,
In fact one day
I asked myself the question,

‘How can anything matter
And not matter simultaneously?’
And although I felt I knew the answer
I could not say anything about it.

Is it beyond words?
I can’t even say that
But only
That I could not say;

And after a while,
I just gave up,
Pulled the laundry
Out of the dryer

And then,
As I often do
At this time of day,
Made a cup of tea.

Then I sat down
And began to write
And this is what
Came out of me.