BUDDHA'S DOGS

I notice I've been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around the same park most of my life,
notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass. The gong sounds and back in the hall,
I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep. The Buddha in my dream is me,
surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands. I wake up
for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying, "never put anyone out of your heart,"
and the heart opens and knows it won't last and will have to open again and again,
chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud then sun.

Review of Buddha's Dogs​:

"These poems are at once tender, vulnerable, biting, heartbreaking, and hilarious. One moment you are laughing, the next moment drying your eyes. There's a ruthless authenticity--a deep cherishing--in Buddha's Dogs, a splendidly mature first book of poems that is filled with moments of Proustian recall, with the comedy and the anguish, the beauty and the burning of lived experience." -Edward Hirsch, judge Four Way Books Intro Prize

Four Way Books

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