Sleep Your Fill

Dark of night, we have to tell you,
Dukkha, darling, you’re not the source

Of your suffering, even though
That would be so empowering—

If only mistaken belief
About the permanence of self

Actually caused the suffering
Of your transient animal,

Then, yes, hallelujah Buddha,
Change the perception of your ways

And free the soul from evil days.
About suffering, everyone

Would like to be forever wrong,
Putting it away, anyhow

As an illusion, or at least
Somewhere insignificant, some

Untidy spot, etc.,
So that then, like dogs and horses,

Whose suffering’s rarely noticed,
You could get on with cheerful life,

A non-self for all purposes
Of dukkha-free enlightenment.

To free a life from suffering
Would be to free matter from mass,

And we would say, if anything,
It’s the stable self that escapes

From body to body, lightly
As a Pentecostal candle,

Hopping from head to heavy head,
Alighted, lighting, vanishing,

As this word self itself has done,
Arriving here with these others

In incredulous derangement
Of another sufferer’s poems.