Let It Go, Buddha by D.R. James

Let it go, Buddha

keeps telling me, still so

attached to detachment

that veins I imagine

at his temples throb

like the chanting

of ancestors on a CD

I bought cheap for $7.97.

For once again I’ve had

the wrong idea: Calvi-

tholicism’s indissoluble

oil slick floating on

Buddha’s smooth sea

of equanimity. Try

as I might – and, well,

there it is, attached at

the straining hip of effort.

Zen Master Seung Sahn says

wanting enlightenment’s

a big mistake. I say

add it to the list:

the first marriage,

the first religion,

the second – trying

to save the whole world

with words.

About the Poet:

D. R. James, retired from 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press, 2021).