Dying Small by Cameron Morse

Dying Small (excerpt 17)

OK but what if I’m not ready to die a small being moment after moment?

Sleepless nights my head hurts because of the tumor in my head I know there’s so much left for me to do. I know I’m not ready

to live in the realm of the Buddha nature, not ready to empty my bag of rocks at the foot of the Japanese maple, my pink granite and obsidian shards, my smooth stone painted with the face of a buffalo, not ready to let go of today’s bouquet of bony branches torn from the hand of the oak tree, the clenched fist. Forgive me,

Father, I would say, in another tradition, for leaving the baby to cry in her crib. I am so thoroughly spent, wasted, yet another book is always waiting inside me, and moment after moment the poems arrive, filter in and take their seats. Cameron Morse