To Hold Infinity in the Eyelids

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

 

The carved Buddha lies,

His eyelids in a straight line

To infinities.

~ Seiho [Englished by Phillip Whidden]

Do straight lines lead to two infinities,

To height and depth, or maybe more, to right

And left; if angled, to divinities

Encompassing all darkness and all light,

Eternity stretched out in every way?

If Buddha stands straight upright in his stone

Configuration, two horizons weigh

At either end but each is in a zone

Too far away to understand.  The farthest space

Beyond the stars, where stars and mass all end,

Becomes a dizzying, eternal place

That thoughts and feelings cannot apprehend.

  If this be true of Buddha’s endless ends,

    Then brain fails what its starburst thought intends.

~ Phillip Whidden