by Janaka Stagnaro
I understand your suffering
as you watch all around you,
all that you have called dear,
fall away
from your grasping hands.
No one said
catching shadows was an easy task.
Dear friend,
I understand the turning of your stomach
as you await tomorrow’s return,
trying to ward it off
with bloodied hands.
No one said
crossing the road of the roadster time
was an easy task.
Dear friend,
are you not tired
of the searing heat,
of trying to fashion the goals of the world
into ornaments of happiness?
Janaka is.
He walked through a forest one day
and watched the leaves
from manzanita trees fall,
and crushed them one by one with his footfalls,
as happy as a child.
What were those leaves?
Everything he called his own.
Every fear
every hope
every desire
every love.
All his memories
all the people in his life
all the events and circumstances.
Infancy
youth
adulthood
and old age.
Even birth
and death.
What was left of Janaka
you might ask?
Only being a tree,
growing in the Silence.
Watching.
And drinking in the Sun.
Janaka Stagnaro 2003
janakastagnaro.com