As I ride above these states
a stewardess asks my name
I calmly reply "my name is but a name",
as reality touches down I give the
woman a kiss on the cheek
and whisper "I'm twelve miles high".
I'm simply sitting on twelve different
mountain peaks,
twelve different truths
in various hues and shapes.
As the sun-dried breeze caresses the face
so in the same way did I caress you,
and lit the sun in men's hearts
so that their gardens may explode with color
and desire artistic wonder
I'm journeying on to the Ellis Island of the west
the west I thought had died
a virtual desert in intellectual thought and
literary expansion for the
eager mind in fruitless abandon.
The ferry is the cold steel of industrial
ambition freezing and gray
while the sharp winds send me along
with a stamped ticket proving my place
among the tourists
no one wishes me near them
I'm worn dirty and my hair wild
(this breeze that I speak of doesn't
improve my situation).
I reach the island at mid-morning
and before boarding this behemoth
that I will be straddling at the very tip
I unpack my dirty used chimes and
clang clang clang!
I have now witnessed in the wispy fog as
it breezes past coolly and indifferent to
my intrusive nature
I gaze out on the sea and wind
biting my cheeks raw I let out
a "Hoo!"
Unchallenged and unafraid I stride to the top
this is my Peak
my Mountain
could this be that I have witnessed the truth
in God's dharma?
Twelve and each one gazes from their
different peaks like wise chinese sages
all radiantly transcendent in their own
specific ways?
Smiling and wrinkled with youth and age
with their own individual truths scrawled behind
them on the mountain wall?
I lay down my pack
my head soon follows
and on the top of this island
I sip hot tea
and chew macaroni from a can
a fellow's simple feast
warm and filled with utter euphoric happiness
do I finally sleep
on the peak of this golden mountain.
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