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Stone Buddha sitting in the garden
Surrounded by flowers and the flow of life
Birds perching on sun-warmed stone head
Crickets chirping in the lotus of his stone hands
Lit only by the glitter of distant stars.
Stone eyes closed and unseeing it waits
Red paint flaking
Stone features slowly eaten by frost and time
For Enlightenment
That does not come
That cannot come
That will never come
To stone Buddhas.
Stone Buddha born from sand and lime
Shaped by human hand into a form
That echoes one who also sat in gardens
Surrounded by flowers and the flow of life
Birds perching on sun-warmed head
Crickets chirping in the lotus of his hands
Lit at night by the glitter of distant stars.
Eyes open and seeing all he waited
Red paint flaking
Strong features slowly eaten by weather and time
For Enlightenment.
Did it come to he who sought to grasp the spark within?
Did the search find the thread that stretches
From First Beginning to Final End
Clothed for the moment in rags of flesh and red paint?
Did he come to know the hands that grasp
The skeins of all lives at their ends
Where they form again a single cord tightly woven
Unbroken?
Stone Buddha is no idle idol
Worship, hatred, indifference all the same to it
Which lacks the burning spark
Mocked equally by incense and offerings
Sledgehammers and steel.
Rather it is but a touchstone to those
Who seek to discern that inner glow
So difficult to perceive against the fire
Of wheeling stars and chirping crickets
The need to tend a garden.
Stone Buddha set with love in my garden
Surrounded by flowers and the flow of life
Stone eyes closed it sits there, unseeing
Where I also sit, seeing all with open eyes
And so I know the difference.