My Pockets Are Not Big Enough - Lewis Buchner

[Lawrence Robinson]

My Pockets Are Not Big Enough

Two friends were washing their bowls in a creek, and they saw two crows fighting over a frog. One friend asked, “Why does it always have to be like that?”
The other friend replied, “It’s only for your benefit, honored one.”
—PZI Miscellaneous Koans, Case 48 (Dongshan)


I don’t know where to put cruelty.
Someone hands it to me —
says, “Here, hold this,”
but it’s messy, and my coat is clean
and my pockets are small.

It’s not like the crow
eating the frog by the creek —
that’s in its nature
and the frog’s too.
But this other thing  —
the campfires lit at Merv
where no one was left to name —
or the first skull cracked in a cave —
that’s harder to fold into a jacket
and walk away.

Some say it’s in us —
like a seed we carry
that sprouts under pressure
and glows darkly.

One spring the tent caterpillars
marched across New Jersey.
They spun silk on every tree,
crawled up the porch, across the roof,
and down the other side. 
My father lit kerosene to their nests
and said it was the only way.

So I keep asking —
what belongs in the world,
and what doesn’t?
And who gets to know the difference?

Maybe it’s all
for your benefit, honored one.
Maybe the choice
is just what we agree to carry —
and what slips through anyway,
without a thought.

	- Lewis Buchner
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/poetrylovers/attachments/20250602/d9a32b3f/attachment.htm>