-- for Mary Ann Kurose --
“Dear Sir, I’ve brought you figs to eat.”
She bowed and offered him a tray.
Siddhartha looked up from his feet
to spy a maiden young and sweet
and gay.
He wondered, was this in his dreams?
then closed his eyes and fed his clay.
“I know exactly what this means.
My tightrope walk between extremes
must end today!”
The nourishment refreshed his veins
and soon dispelled his mind’s display
of anguish and its knotted skeins –
that human world of hopes and pains
and plans that go astray.
His five disciples pulled their hair
and gnashed their teeth in mad dismay.
This sudden change they couldn’t bear.
They spat at him a broken prayer
and fled. Nor did he bid them stay.
Siddhartha, having passed his test,
looked up and hailed a chirping jay.
He’d found, to end his tortured quest,
Nirvana as enlightened rest.
The Buddha rose and claimed the Middle Way.