A Meeting

When Jesus and the Buddha met
in a meadow of larkspurs, on a balmy day,
the bees of the valley went mad with love,
the sky and the sun were a glaze.

 
“Let us sit on the grass,” said Buddha.
And they rested their traveling bones.
One in cambric, the other in saffron,
and the air was the color of amber.

“I’ve been to gather the children
who cling to a life of disease.
The ones abandoned in alleys
of harrowing megacities.

“Here are their souls,” Christ said,
pointing to the larkspurs, reaching the high hills.
A breeze blew over the meadow,
rippling the flowers like a banner.

“I,” said the Buddha, “have sat down in silence.
I was that eerie quietude
in the midst of the ratcheting guns
when all that they saw was a mirror,

“and they knew what they had done.”
The bees made a loud buzzing
like the din of an ancient battle.
Then they were still.

“We had nothing to teach, but mercy,” said Christ.
“And patience,” Buddha added.
Then they gathered their belongings and parted
over diverging hills, each alone in his thoughts.

(This poem first appeared at Transcend Media Service.)

Gary Corseri has published and posted articles, fiction, poems and dramas at hundreds of global venues, including, Countercurrents, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine, The Japan Times and Counterpunch.  He has published 2 novels and 2 poetry collections , and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.  He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and he has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.  Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net.