This isn’t the Sudden Enlightenment School
By a long shot
It’s the Show-up-Each-Day-
Sit-Down-and-Shut-up-School
It’s meditating morning and night
Then gathas throughout the day
It’s tending to the garden of the mind
And smiling to the thousands of weeds
It’s gently uprooting
One weed at a time
It’s Gandhi’s patience of emptying
An ocean with a teaspoon
It’s being on the path with Carla Nguyen
Whose texts to me are bells of mindfulness
It’s acknowledging over and over
“I have so far to go … I’m so happy”
It’s not the rushing racing way for me
I’m taking refuge in the slow fix
And I’ll never forget what Ms. Chatterjee
Sent me on that auspicious postcard:
“The journey of a billion miles
Begins with a single step”
–novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris
