Cancer with Bodhidharma
by Jade Kleiner, written after a prompt from Alder during a DIY MFA workshop they ran
why didn't Bodhidharma come from my attic?
there's lots of stuff he would like up there - a wall, the cold.
I could have brought him iced coffee, licorice and biscuits.
If asked for it, in that steady croaking tone of his,
I would even have loaned him my sleeping bag.
Two years ago Bodhidharma came from my grief,
from my grandmother's tumor. He came from diagnosis,
from death, from wasting, from the conditioned,
from where we are all going. And the Master's gaze
bored into my liver. He could tell I was going somewhere else.
That I could not suffer this moment, my own kidneys
under duress from lithium, my memory failing,
my family falling apart. Bodhidharma could tell
that I didn't want to keep the koan.
He is not nice. But his firmness, the weight and strength
of his hand on my shoulder, it did the trick.
The koan is burned into my flesh.
And so I would offer Bodhidharma my attic.
Invite him. Beckon to the walls. Present them for gazing.
I wouldn't ask him to teach. I wouldn't advertise him.
But remembering the tumor,
I would give him a home for a while.
Sample Poem 2:
Ah, the Gap
by Piero Falci
The distance between my desire and the child
Is measured in heartbeats, heavy and wild.
I feel her small arms wrapping tight to my neck,
A shelter found in the wreck.
She holds me like a frightened sailor
Who fears the ocean will swallow her whole,
Her fragile body clinging to this safe refuge
Where she can rest her tired soul.
She knows that though the harbor stands
Right before her, warm and near,
She will be forced back out to sail again
Across the sea that feeds her fear.
Ach, diese Lücke.
Ah, this terrible, aching void in the chest—
Can’t you see? I am the harbor to give her rest.
Why must I leave her? Why must we part,
When all that I long for is holding her heart?
To watch her sail out as she swallows her tears,
Believing that "no" will define all her years,
Is a grief that bends the frame of who I am—
Not the standard grief that offers slow relief,
But incomplete love's sharp and painful cut,
A wound where every door of hope seems shut.
The vow in my bones has been settled and made,
Though held in suspense as the slow shadows fade.
I wait on the ink and the signatures signed,
For wounded consents that are still unaligned.
Ach, diese Lücke.
Ah, that sharp gap.
I must learn to sit still,
And master the ache of a powerless will.
I cannot let the void consume the floor beneath my feet,
Though we are tossed where dark and stormy currents meet.
I must step down from the judge’s chair,
And remember that all others, just like me, also care;
They too are being tossed by violent waves and salty air,
Drifting through the tempest of a sea we all must share.
I know I must hold this gap without trying to force it shut,
Not with a clenched fist grasping at what has been cut,
But holding this ache gently, as a lamp set in the dark,
A flame that burns steadily, a quiet, guiding spark.
Help me stand firm on this pier, uncorroded by the night,
So when she looks back, she sees me holding up the light—
The witness in the harbor who will never look away,
A quiet sanctuary through the tempest and the spray.
Until she, the tired sailor, safe at last from wind and foam,
Finally hears me say:
“Grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.”
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