THIS MORNING IT IS COOL ON THE VERANDA

How many times has this body been thrown aside?
The chest is always torn open, willingly,
And shown to the eyes of all -
But there is not one response. Not one sees.

This morning, it is cool on the veranda.
The strings of my lute rise to these fingers.
I find that one un-named, unheard chord
And my fingers curl around it -
And it takes me down, down, deeply through the luminous centuries...

So, I remember the time they threw
This body down into a pit of licking flames,
but to my senses it was only a bed of tender rose petals.
Where their eyes burned from the thick, choking black smoke,
I knew only the attar of roses, singing.

Flesh and sinew and bones
May have burned,
Still I knew only the impossibly honeyed scent
That is You.

Now, a thousand years later,
I have to laugh & shake this head...
Searching all the broken world
For a few crumbs of Detachment.