Enlightenment: A Poem by Dale Harris

ENLIGHTENMENT

My husband is a serious meditator.
His aim is not to be reborn into a next lifetime.
My goal is to get through this one.

My husband reads
from the journal of a great woman teacher
who spent twelve years living in a cave in Tibet,
to reach enlightenment.

I tell him, clean your room.
It is a cave.
It will take you twelve years.
If you can find your socks,
maybe you can find your Buddha nature.

Later he says
maybe I can do it in three.
Your room or enlightenment, I ask?

I kiss him when he sleeps.
I whisper,
if you’re not coming back,
neither am I.