Patricia Bukur: poetry

"ZEN"
I want to build a new house
and I want to meditate there with you

in the garden
polished river rocks beneath a Ponderosa pine,
arranged in Zen-like fashion.

I can bring us tea
and we can contemplate
the lives we lived before

where the temple stood
and cherry blossoms blew.
Haiku.
Me and you
in robes with dragons and maybe swords.

Were you my lover then?
Or was it unrequited love?
That's what I'd guess
but
I don't know
the past or future for that matter,
and I don't want to.
Do you?
Well, sometimes I do…

But something bigger than us both
brought us to this place
and we cannot escape
at least not from wondering.

The house I want to build
reminds me of that life
with incense wafting and cherry wood
instead
of blossoms blowing.

I knew then
that my poetry
would not be wasted on you,
and you proved that true
through lives of formless meditation

two bodies lying on rice mats
breathing one breath,
vowing always to be friends
and honoring it
unfailingly,
end after end.