“Entering the Monastery, We Give Up Nothing”
Just because the dust is full of gods
and what red and green have in common can’t be put into words,
doesn’t mean you should stop opening the newspaper
or jogging backwards every Wednesday. Just because
when asked who we are, we say who we were,
and the universe is really a small delicatessen,
is no reason to run off to Bristol, Connecticut
with a chip on your shoulder. You have a duty
to the unchopped liver, the unmade bed, the bookshelves
all out of order—a duty
you must fulfill with grace and courtesy
and great daily attention to the sacredness of things.
So just because
they found jewels in the ashes of that one proclaimed to be a buddha
doesn’t mean you shall not march against the war,
or teach what little you know to those who know too much,
and curse in midtown traffic, wondering
why the light is always changing right before your eyes.
-Dick Allen
Present Vanishing
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