A Forgotten Poem

 Teacher

 
Monkey kings
bow their head in reverence
while studious and
well mannered students
 clap and wave their arms about.
The teacher
speaks  to lessons
reduced to  fading words
and symbols  on
yellowed scripts,
translated and transmuted
into concepts that
hold  only grains
of the sand
Truth is.
 
Once a disillusioned Indian Prince,
a humble Jewish carpenter,
a Saudi travelling merchant
 and the face of so many others
who have looked directly into the divine,
the teacher stands before us,
an accumulated morphing
 of centuries of shed outfits and forms,
 different languages and pointers
with only one lesson to share.
 
The weary teacher has  traveled far
along the silk road to the east,
the busy industrial path to the west,
over mountains and through dessert,
through  rice patty and through ocean,
through golden lined streets
and war -torn rubble,
to stand here today.
 
 
The teacher teaches,
not so much with what is said
but by what is embodied
within this meager form
that is worn like a cloak
around all that is.
The lesson is taught through
slow purposeful steps,
inspired speech,
and a light that shines
so brilliantly
from eyes that
offer Love to all of us
who so desperately want to know
what the teacher is here to teach.

© Dale-Lyn (Pen),  June 2020

I was reminded of this poem today. I wrote it years ago and like so much of the poetry that pours through me...I completely forgot about it. Once  a poem  is written, edited or revised if needed, and then put "out there" in some way... my work is done. That is how I tend to operate in this genre. 

Poetry is an an example, I believe, of the proper use of universal mind. As long as ego doesn't pull us down into the muck of personal mind with all that "me, mine, I" crap...like "Oh my God! What if others don't like it and think I am a bad poet?  What if others like it and get some personal gain from it?" All that stuff misuses this wonderful mind that just wants to express and create.

Hmm!

All is well in my world..