February 15, 2025
Thank you to everyone who shared your beautiful poetry.
As Mimi Rosenfeld beautifully put it, this was a way to ‘share our poems and insights within the sangha.’
We look forward to creating more opportunities like this in the future. Enjoy!
Death poem 2025:
It took a long time
for me to understand
what it is to make an offering
still not totally sure
it looks like
ALL of it
My love for you
brought me into this world
being previous to this life
it will far outlast it
weave threads of me in
let it be ridiculous
let it be
surprisingly mundane
these shining treasures of existing
and let them fill your heart so fully
you have
No doubt
about what to do next
about how VAST
the love is
that’s required
– Sarah Dōjin Emerson
Plant wilting on my windowsill
Showing signs of over-watering
And under-watering, perhaps
Roots pulled from soil
Pot full of earth
– Janou
There goes body. Thank you, body.
There goes thought. Finally.
Who will inherit my heart
when the rest of me is gone?
This way, this way now.
Diving into myself
Why not? Nowhere left to go.
How delightful.
– Alex Sarkissian
I Walk Beside You
I walk beside you
as far as the path allows.
The breath slows, the hands loosen,
no need to hold on.
The ocean is wide,
its surface shimmering and dancing.
You step forward, unafraid.
I stop in amazement,
watching as the current takes you
somewhere I cannot follow.
Still, the breeze carries your name,a whisper between two worlds.
– Shannon L. Whittaker
may my deepest footprints be washed by the sea
may my lightest caress fan you forever
– Vipassana Vijayarangan
To Whom It May Concern
There’s still celery in the fridge.
It thought I’d eat it all.
Now I am the refrigerator.
The hum.
* * *
Some nights, waves
slammed themselves
against the concrete pier wall.
I loved their ferocity
and retreat.
* * *
– Nancy Kangas
and then
you didn’t
breathe
– Mare
Ah, at last
The wait has been a wait
No more wondering
No more striving
No more struggling
Only love
The ending of me
and I don’t even have to try
to let go
I am gone
Gone am I
It just happens
How can it be,
only now
I know
I exist(ed)?
Life keeps coming
and coming
and coming
Even as it goes
goes
and goes
The closer
you are
to me,
the more
you feel
me here
not here
Boo!
Unmattering
intensifies
my spirit
Feel me
when you
breathe
Who is
the one
dying?
– Tessa Kleeman
hands stack fruit into pyramids
while the neatest one writes our names
a triplet of creaking floorboards
how many come through this door to remember and eat?
as a child, i thought four. now, i know thousands
my steps join the chorus
– Bin Jung
#
The perfume of lilacs permeates me
Then I am only a memory of lilacs
#
My life was filled by words in books.
Who will turn the page as I fade away?
– Mimi
Sōhō Genjō
Time to go –
Somewhere, nowhere, everywhere, just here
Where I have been all along
An almost unbearable intimacy
In ever-changing scenery.
– Charlie Korin Pokorny
plunged into cold and dark
clumsy and true
earth swallows me down
the wrong hatch
Ma! I’m home.
– Michelle Perkowski
so hungry for life, now
feeding life’s hunger
-Alisha Mascarenhas
water holds a reflection
of the moon
like my body holds life –
I never was
and always am
setting and rising.
– sophia schechner
Fall
Into the Earth
(She will sustain you)
Dive
Into the Unknown
(It will carry you)
Listen
To the Snow
(It will still you)
Play
With the Cats
(They will cheer you)
Bask
In the Sun
(It will revive you)
Bathe
In the Moonlight
(It will transform you)
Feel
Into my Arms
(They’re wrapped around you)
Don’t miss a thing
Don’t miss a thing
– Michelle Marwitz
Death Poems
by Hugo Medina
1
I planted redwood,
maple and oak.
The earth gave away,
the water settled –
no thought of staying.
2
Old stone church.
Eyes closed,
I grasped its ruined wall –
heaven opened.
(St. Augustine’s Chapel, Canterbury)
They say you live until the last time someone says your name
maybe that’s why when I close my eyes I hear you screaming
The fact that I have so much grief for parts of myself already gone
is a good indication that I have lived
– Emily
Death
Always believing
the need to prove,
to achieve.
Occasionally resting in
nothing more to do
to reach.
Already plenty, so much
richness, mystery
washing over.
Just being there
nothing to change
nothing to be done
wettened by it all
until the waterfall
finishes.
– Michael Madormo