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2003-09-11 - 9:10 a.m. One of my best friends is Buddhist. When I went back to New York for the first time After, we stood as close as we could to The Emptiness and he slipped his prayer beads off his wrist and handed them to me. He told me once, that his beads had broken. He had reconstructed it, but one bead had been lost. I always feel like that's the one prayer that doesn't get answered. He sent me this poem for today. On Prayer by Czeslaw Milosz You ask me how to pray to someone who is not. All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard, Above landscapes the color or of ripe gold Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun. That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is' Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned. Notice I say we; there, every one, separately, Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh And knows that if there is no other shore They will walk that aerial bridge all the same. and now. I really am going to the woods.
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