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Spring 1984   Vol. 1 #1
Spring 1984   Vol. 1 #1

Poems/Not Poems

Do You Know How to Workover a Poem?

By Jack Kornfield

 
 

 

Do you know how to workover

a poem?

I mean work it over like a

thug

beating out wrong meanings.

 

Or do you mean workover

like overtime?

The pay is double, triple for

straw into gold, if

you work and spin and

find and refind.

 

I have worked you over

in my heart

so many times

spun and respun the fabricstory of our lives

like tales of old,

or new testaments

a complex braid of

our bodies and souls.

 

Now it’s all one substance

so just hold me.

Or don’t.

The meaning is all the same

in the end.

What we keep

and what we throw away

all gold.

 

artist-image

From the Spring 1984 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 1, No. 1)
Text and image © 1984–2023 by Jack Kornfield

Topics

Art, Poetry


Author

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He is author of many books and audio programs, including A Path with Heart (Bantam, 1993), and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (Bantam, 2001).

Author

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He is author of many books and audio programs, including A Path with Heart (Bantam, 1993), and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (Bantam, 2001).

 
 
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