ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] poetree
I find Buddhism interesting, though it's not a path I follow personally. I've written a fair bit of poetry that touches on similar motifs, especially haiku. Most Buddhist poetry tends to focus on enlightenment. But there's a shadow side to the system that reveals what goes on in the unenlightened mind. Dukkha is the concept of suffering from wrong choices or thoughts, and how the harm caused to another can also complicate one's own life. So for contrast I picked a poem along this angle.


The Dukkha Path
by Elizabeth Barrette


Dread like a blast of sleet-toothed wind,
Hatred like a lake of boiling lead,
Resentment like a field of deep green nettles,
Frustration like a wall of fist-dented bricks,
Anger like a forest of pines on fire,
Sorrow like a riverbed parched to mud,
Disappointment like a mist of receding mirages,
Regret like a yard of bleached white bones,
Exhaustion like a bog without a bottom,
All laid out under a sullen sky --

These places where you have led me
Now lie before you,
Placed in your path by the actions of your own hand.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

If you are unable to use this captcha for any reason, please contact us by email at support@dreamwidth.org

Profile

poetree: Paper sculpture of bulbuous tree made from strips of book pages (Default)
POETREE

February 2017

S M T W T F S
   1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728    

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 24th, 2025 08:59 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios