Catching a glimpse through mountain shadows

of a white bearded man returning

  to his cave dwelling.

Hungry worms have reduced to dirt

Parched pages of his sacred texts.

What really is there to know?

This hermit had learned everything

but specialized in doing nothing.

Dusty books are as useful

As ashes swept into the Ganges.

His trusted friends at his granite perch

an oak stick to prop his chin

whilst staring at the moon

and a wooden box

to keep him upright throughout the night.

In his fifty-fifth year a single thought

soaked his mind like the monsoon mist.

“I am going to die right now

Now

At this moment

Right now.”

“What a hassle it will be”

   he sighed,

“for wrinkled nuns to fetch wood

to torch these useless bones of mine.”

For three days under passing clouds

next to the mountain’s rushing torrent

he collected dry wood

stacking his pyre next to the cave door.

That woodpile remained

for two decades

keeping his mind nailed to mortality

as village nuns below

left this world

one     by     one.

Then, the day when autumn winds blew northward

and rusted hinges broke

the great meditator’s door fell open.

Dust eight month’s thick

wrapped Gomchen’s shadowed figure

concealing the gnawed holes

in his woolen shawl.

Chewed upright corpses are more useful

than cremation ash—

Perseverance is not being distracted

even by your death.

Solo Khumbu, Nepal

∞

From the Spring 2013 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 29, No. 2)

© 2013 Matteo Pistono