Why Tara Turns Green - Alfred K. LaMotte

[Lawrence Robinson]

Why Tara Turns Green

Some parts of your body are alive,
and some are numbed by shame.
The real purpose of meditation
is to wake up God
in your supernova toes,
arouse your bones’ erotic photons,
let each neutrino ring
like a mindfulness bell
in your rib cage,
make every proton rhythmic
with its star,
inspire a leukocyte to waltz
with a red dwarf.
This is how ancestors dance
with angels in your blood.
Have you received a morning glory’s
promiscuous smile,
a kiss from the dust on your sole?
O yogini, O devoted monk,
I know you’ve been trying to sing
without lips, “I am not this body!”
But Adam was a breath of mud.
His first wife, Lilith, liked to ride
on top, and Jesus died
on the Tree of Life shouting,
“I won’t leave anything behind!”
He claimed each sparkle
of your semen and each tear
you mingle with marrow and loam.
The half-chewed morsel
of bagel in your mouth
is the kingdom of his perfect joy.
Don’t you know he has a secret name
that means, “Miracle of Worms”?
The Bodhi Tree is the Body Tree.
That’s why Tara turns green
when her fingers stroke the ground.
It’s why we share food,
pray for sacred land and water,
laugh when we see babies,
whirl and spin like wizened leaves
at sunset when we die.

	- Alfred K. LaMotte