perhaps it's appropriate

to leave the world in rancor and bitterness

it makes such a definitive division

between the fixed painful earth

and the flowing unconflicted sky

oh I know what Buddha said

about one's last thought in life

but maybe

just maybe

that beaten down despair

of leaving this fractured life

holds in it the calm the peace

the happy aspiration

of the truer conditions of creation

beyond this shit box we call the World

(earth a beautiful planet to be sure

but one a world of which we ever make a shit box)

so in handling the terms and snares of which

I know to be this life

(and then only what and how much I know

I make no claims for transcendence)

my ache and resentment and weariness

of being in this world

can only make me light and happy

knowing a freedom from this particular identity

will be soon enough

same for you and all you love

same for them

same for others

and so on until the last sleeping soul awakes

free of the fixed painful earth

and embraced in the flowing unconflicted sky

Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.