JAPA

“If there had been only one Buddhist in the woodpile” 
That cynical idealist, realist poet of the people once pondered.

Substitute Waco, Texas with any and all absurdity of violence
Before then, until now and beyond tomorrow

If Isis, the Egyptian mother goddess protector of all
had been in the woodpile in Iraq

could the children have been saved?

the Christians, Yazidi, Sunni,

the young men killed

by black masked executioners

their faces well hidden

                             

Isis: they have taken your name in vain

perverted your purpose.

Could any power prevent mass murder, carnage, brutality? 

Only consciousness can
Not Bodhisattva or saint-like consciousness

But the tiniest bit of wonder before the infinite universe

A modest intimation of human spirit

One clear glimpse of beauty, goodness, love

In an instant might engender compassion

for the pain, suffering and sorrow of "the other"

That glimmer of consciousness might have asked: 

"With my life, here and now, what will I do? 

What do I wish to bring into being, to experience? 

Men of war have ever said thus:

“I will assert and secure my power over the weak and helpless"

through terror, torture, rape and death

Shedding blood of innocents with the arrogance of zeal

Such is the history of the world

a "nightmare from which we are trying to awaken,"

And what will the warriors rule over

these modern hoards at the gates of civilization?

Chaos and devastation?

Keeping watch, lest the same thing befall them

Born of the pain and malice they engendered in others?

No deus ex machina descends upon us.

While the Buddhists wait and meditate

Clapping one hand