The Feast

Another bout of serendipity or what Carl Jung called synchronicity has led  to the creation of this poem.

The Feast

My strange looking brothers are gathered together
around the long, expansive table,
eyeing and drooling over the reams of food stuff  on it .
I take my seat before the main dishes 
 expertly cooked to perfection.
The spices and rich sauces send whiffs
of savory sweetness through the air,
 and the many pastries and pies  tantalize  the fingertips  
with their delicate flaking shells.
I can't help myself . I grasp.

Though it seems that each inch of the table
is covered in some delicacy
my companions  call out to the bone weary servants,
who bring platter after platter in to us.
"More!  More!  More!" they  shout 
as they  bang and clang  cutlery against the solid wood
hidden beneath the fine, crisp, white linen,  
making the servers  frantically run about
to bring us more.
The  table just gets longer and longer
with each entrée we are offered.

I hear my hoarse and constricted voice
among the many calling out my orders,
and reprimanding those winded waifs  
who do not scurry fast enough.
I slap away the trembling hands
that plop dishes down in front of me
that are not to my liking.
I am hungry, like the many dining with me...
so very hungry.
I can not get enough. I want more.

"Bring me more!!!" ,
my demanding echoes compete with the others. 
I feel the rumblings of my craving within me,
threatening to expose all that lay beneath it
in tightly wrapped containers I stuffed away long ago.
My grief, my fear, feelings of not being enough
unravel  inside me,
eating away at my internal flesh,
leaving craters and deep ulcerating voids.
And I try so desperately to push it all down
and keep it down 
by digging my spoon into the plates before me....
to fill the growling emptiness within my core once and for all.
But atlas my belly continues to growl
and my cries for more are not being answered fast enough.

I look around the table at my  ugly and deformed dinner companions.
 I can see why they are still complaining of their hunger
despite how much they have before them.
The silver spoons  they hold to their mouths are too big
for the pin sized opening that is there.
Nothing can enter and even if it did no food stuff would be able to
pass down their grotesquely long and much too slender  throats.
In some cruel twist of fate, they are not equipped to swallow.
Their huge and swollen bellies receive only air
with each bite they attempt to take.
I can understand  why they are so hungry.

But what about me?  I am not like them.
Why can I not fill the gaps within me
when there is so much before me?

Reluctantly, I lift the eyes I have held down too long 
to the mirror that gleams and shines
on the wall behind my brothers' disgusting forms
and see a shadow of myself staring back.
I gasp in horror.

The mouth that once opened  so easily
in a  big and awkward smile for others
has been shrivelled  to a dot by cries for "Me, my and mine"
as I learned to  focus only on
defending and protecting my earthly form.
The throat that was once full  and wide enough
to accommodate  my laughter
has been constricted to  a slender tube
by  talk of not enough and a need for more.
My resistance to  what is
has whooshed me away from my moment
and led me here to this table of ghostly forms  
with unquenchable desire.
I run my hand along my belly to feel
it bloated and hard with my longing.
I too am now a  ghost like figure
that will never  get enough from the feast
provided to satiate my hunger.
Desire will always be my prison...

"Why?" I call out to those still ignorant of their deformities. 
They ignore me as they continue
to  dig and dig into the plates they can not eat 
and I listen why they cry out for more and more to no avail.
I point to the mirror with my own trembling hand,
the thick blueberry from the pie I could not eat dripping from it.
"Look!" I cry but they do not look up from their busy doing. 
They are too intent on their striving to notice what they have become.

I close my eyes and pull my chair away from the unsatisfying feast
that causes so much suffering. 
I place a hand on my throat. 
I may not be able to swallow, I tell myself, but I can breathe.
I breathe in, knowing that I am able to breathe in.
I breathe out, knowing that I can still breathe out.
In that breath I  find the  true island of refuge within me,  
that removes me from this  greedy feast.
I feel the Life force moving through me, filling me  and healing me.
The air that fills me is enough.  I have enough. I need no more.
I allow it to enter me, to cleanse me and to open me.

Breath goes to my craving and desire
and brings it to my heart to be held and embraced.
It goes to each of those packages of memory and emotion I have stuffed away
and opens them, slowly, gently,one by one,
bringing them to my heart to be held and embraced.
With each thing I hold, each breath I take,  my heart gets bigger.

I then look about at all the servants scurrying about ,
I ask for their forgiveness.
I look at my reflection, my brothers and all beings
and I hold them awkwardly in my ever growing heart.
The  "Me, my  and mine " of my  imprisonment slips away
and my mouth is widened once again into a peaceful smile.
The need for more is replaced with a feeling of enough
and my throat expands  in laughter once again.
My longing gives way to Love
and my belly shrinks to a healthy size
filled in a way it never was before.

I stand up and excuse myself.
I am freed and with me,
so is each of my dining companions.
The unforgiving hunger is finally over.

Dale-Lyn (July, 2020)

Very, very rough!  Among other things that serendipitously came to my attention all at once, this was inspired by the below video.  All is well!

Plum Village ( Nov 2019) Dharma Talk by Sister Dang Nghiem . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ogs3oA6Kg