TATHAGATA by Henry Rappaport

CJH

                                                                                                                                                         

TATHAGATA

The book I’m reading tells me not to read it.

That’s really what it’s about –

Not reading it. It’s not a pleasure read.

It’s not about walking away

From walking away either. It’s about

Being a thus goer. (I know. I know.

Some people will wonder what

That means. Others will roll their eyes

Because they have been or are going

Down that road.) Impossible to explain.

But the ineffable is all this book is about.

I used to know ineffable. I used to

Lie in a cabin in the gloom of Syracuse

Winter warm by a woodstove hearing

Ineffable sing. What did I know?

Forty-five years later the same singing

I hear once in awhile in circumstances

Unexpected: on Glee, from a sax on the Via

Fori Imperiali in Rome. Never almost

On command. This book is about

The eight roads to nowhere. Crazy map

From wherever here is to where it’s not.

I read a line at a time before bed.

Many nights the same line again and again.

I’m pretty sure I won’t understand

Or want to change, but you never know.

Maybe in sleep I’ll dream thus going

And maybe it will feel so damn fine

I’ll keep going when it’s wake up time.

                           -Henry Rappaport, Canadian Poet