Heavens of Hiroshima, Nirvanas of Nagasaki

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

The Buddhist statues offer only bronze

Or stone, whatever.  They refuse to aid—

They can’t.  They’re wood and gilt.  A temple bonze

Can’t help . . . not really.  Even curves of jade

In carving, even cultured Buddhist thought

Can’t cure a cancer.  Also Christian saints

Are helpless in their marble.  We are taught

Wise lies, but these are only holy haints,

The eerie wraiths of wishfulness.  The pose

Of zazen and the meditation of

Saint Francis seem to work for some, but those

Are quite beyond such souls requiring love.

  The saints don’t kill malaria.  In calm

    They drop on us their spiritual bomb.

~ Phillip Whidden