The death of the Buddha

The death of the Buddha whose life I have lived vicariously.

He has sat there in his primus position atop scriptures of borrowed books .

For a long time now I have tried to build a kinship bridge between him and I.

I have tried to emulate him with every strategic clime up his Bow tree, but have instead crippled myself into a tortured midget bonsai.

My leaves looking down at texts and the rotten dead footprints others have left behind. Instead of leaning into the sound of the wind so that the sky can send the birds singing to my extended finger branches.

Instead of digging my rooted feet into the ground, to be welcomed by the base of my foundation home in the earth.

 

His death arrived one August morning upon the realisation of my subtle follies.

 I might as well have taken up the wooden cross and practice the art of the gruesome Crossianity, I mean Christianity,in the hopes of one day becoming a martyr Christ.

These are old and stale tropes which have nothing to do with me.

I looked at him, sitting there all dharmatic, supremely sublime ,

picked him up from his books like a ceramic baby, ran laughing and giddy like a little girl,

and sent him crashing onto a domestic asphalt into unrecognisable dimensions,

worlds that I have tried to conquer and terraform

 but whose atmosphere were never mine and we were rendered incompatible. Hence this suffocation. Hence this conquistador ego. This grappling with dissatisfaction.