<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Buddhist New Year Song</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I saw you in green velvet, wide full sleeves</div><div class="">seated in front of a fireplace, our house</div><div class="">made somehow more gracious, and you said</div><div class="">“There are stars in your hair”— it was truth I</div><div class="">brought down with me</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">to this sullen and dingy place that we must make golden</div><div class="">make precious and mythical somehow, it is our nature,</div><div class="">and it is truth, that we came here, I told you,</div><div class="">from other planets</div><div class="">where we were lords, we were sent here,</div><div class="">for some purpose</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">the golden mask I had seen before, that fitted</div><div class="">so beautifully over your face, did not return</div><div class="">nor did that face of a bull you had acquired</div><div class="">amid northern peoples, nomads, the Gobi desert</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I did not see those tents again, nor the wagons</div><div class="">infinitely slow on the infinitely windy plains,</div><div class="">so cold, every star in the sky was a different color</div><div class="">the sky itself a tangled tapestry, glowing</div><div class="">but almost, I could see the planet from which we had come</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I could not remember (then) what our purpose was</div><div class="">but remembered the name Mahakala, in the dawn</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">in the dawn confronted Shiva, the cold light</div><div class="">revealed the “mindborn” worlds, as simply that,</div><div class="">I watched them propagated, flowing out,</div><div class="">or, more simply, one mirror reflecting another.</div><div class="">then broke the mirrors, you were no longer in sight</div><div class="">nor any purpose, stared at this new blackness</div><div class="">the mindborn worlds fled, and the mind turned off:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">a madness, or a beginning?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Diane di Prima</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(<span style="color: rgb(73, 73, 73); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">August 6, 1934 - </span><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">October 25, 2020)</span></div></body></html>