Poems for Eden

So I sat all day
in a wishing grove
watching beauty in her many
forms…

Wonder upon wonder
feeding time into time
Every flavor of life
seems to be here in this One Bright
spot.

I came here also on the day when I
met Padmasambhava
in something like a dream

Sitting here in the shadows
Now is something
like music.

...

Into the earth, up to the sky
A place of no more dreaming

Opens to a wishing grove
We’ve been here all the time

Shedding tears, for you
Avalokitesvara

Could never have imagined
what really *feels like* a tree of souls

I hung a tag
In view of a golden Apple.

...

4-10-2011

I am sitting on a bench in the Wishing Grove. It is embarrassing to have my attention on a page, but I do it anyway. I am in no hurry at all, have arrived here, before the crowds and the heat of the day. Wishes blow lightly all around and sometimes I begin crying for no reason. There have been a few groups by already, but they are quiet, even the children’s bubbling laughter, and the one yelling “I have a grasshopper” doesn’t intrude with the quiet. So far, four languages… one man telling his loved one “these are buddhist prayers to heaven.”

I think the wish box is empty. What shall I write? Prayers for Japan, prayers for Friend, for this spot, this sacred space that drew me... Next time I will wish for myself. A young women is reading the wishes aloud to her boyfriend “for a bunny”, “for  a better soccer moment”, ”for Japan”, “I love this tree. I love my family so much.”

The leaves are making my favorite sound, playing with the winds. I understand why wish in this way, open to the ground and to the sky. My grandfather loves trees too, and the ocean which I can smell from here. This is paradise.

So this is enactment… appreciation.
Coral gardens and bright spring blooms all around. Lush deep greens
and crawling vines like one’s very skin.

Orchids. A Jade vine is bluish with bright green flowers!

Wilhemina believed in ghosts I think, and I think that I can
hear her here. Now I understand why the hours and hours
in the gardens…

Why, the beauty mattered!