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Wayne Amtzis

Poetry is my sadhana/ Meditation, my muse. Other LEVEKUNST articles by the same author.

DOWN SWOOP THE HAWKS

Midnight pools catch the brilliant lanterns carried by women in procession. Deep into sleep I follow them home. As their voices mingle with dawn’s first rays, light flickers across the trellised blossoms Late into morning I wake. The Swayambhu Stupa, long risen from the mist, gleams.

THE STOMACH SUFFERS FROM LACK

The stomach suffers immensely, it suffers from lack. The spine bent and hobbled with hurt, the spine that held up the stairs and resisted the shifting walls, the spine carries us forward, stiffened, but not broken. The hands, palms dark and swollen, knuckles split, fretted with blood. –A poem from an earthquake Nepal survivor.

CHRYSALIS

When the mind wanders or wavers, reconfigure awareness in the body, sensing inwards, looking outwards. When thought holds sway, if you can’t break free or let go, step back, loosen up, shake it out, however you frame it, be physical, get up and move.

SUN AND MOON

Then, stream and pond, movement and repose, like a fish darting from lake to stream, waterfall to light, from droplets to mist, to air, let the wind carry you to the first of the hidden lagoons, the falls above, as distant and near as the moon to the sun.

RADICAL EASE

There is no cure for what ails us, without the body’s grace, its enlightened intent, I wager the cure (for all of us)

NIGHT CLOSES IN

Night closes in with its breath taking grip, Night that walks in the guise of day. Light footed across the rubble, morning comes as if rising from the dead. That which came and came again leveled a world. In that sudden tolling, what great works were interrupted?
The beating of a heart. A heart! Nine thousand hearts!