Breaking the Ice with Buddha

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Breaking the Ice with Buddha

In the idealistic Temple of my soul
out in the cold, shoveling snow.
He sits cross-legged,
waving his hand in the air
white as a snow capped mountain, his head
shaved for hair may knot and strangle concentration.

Tossing frozen rain, he will not do
he'll calls it, 'meaningless labor.'
"What is it you are doing?" He broke the ice.

"Shoveling snow" I tried to ignore him
driving the beveled blade deep into the snow.
His suggestion would be;
to let mother nature do this work
when ever she gets around to warming up the sun
simply let it melt away.

"Snowflake's enemy," he calls to me
last summer he called me 'Yard Artist'
when I cut the lawn.
"Why not use the portable
propane flame throwing heater
and melt the snow instantly?" He suggested.

"Because, I am almost out of propane!" I exclaimed,
my hands wrapped firmly
around the shovel's handle
releasing another load of white poop
and snow butterflies.

"Melt the snow with what propane there is
then drive to acquire more."
His words stuck in my mind where he sat,
like a wet tongue on a flag pole.

I stormed to the garage
retrieved the portable propane heater
and turned it on,
it blasted a six inch flame
and a four foot stream of heat
in a jiffy I had melted the snow
in the driveway, wondering
why this method had not been thought of before.

"Is Buddha a genius?"

He belly laughed his permanent jaded smile
I was standing in an ankle deep lake
of slowly freezing water
it had no way to trail off
from mounds of shoveled snow
as far as I can see,
"You can not manipulate the elements
without creating an alternate problem.
Ying Yang!"

"Do you have any skates," He asked
as the water turned into
a five inch thick slate of ice
trying to turn a problem into a blessing.
"Need a jack-hammer?" He snickered.
I could've strangled him
but that would be suicide.

If acceptance is the key to tranquility
then I will never be tranquil
because I have a hard time understanding
why the price of propane doubled since yesterday.
"If one man has liquid heat and another does not;
their relationship becomes balanced by
currency... when it snows!"

Maybe Buddha will bless me
with a hot sun tomorrow
or he will be there, enlightening me,
while I shovel snow

...and break the ice!

(This poem was inspired by the Monthly Poetry Challenge (November) the poem is a 'spin off' of Billy Collin's poem; Shoveling Snow with Buddha)

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9 Comments
LeBrozLeBrozover 17 years ago
~~

Just goes to show what happens when

You talk to yourself.

TeeTeeTeeTeeover 17 years ago
Sounds

like Buddha likes toying with you or is it more like "Wax On, wax off?" hehe thanks for the giggles!

TT

AnonymousAnonymousover 17 years ago
Wordsworthian

and witty, and

A good story is always worth telling

Did you find your ice skates?

KOLKOREKOLKOREover 17 years ago
The Eastern Encounterns are not Anon!

Sorry.

AnonymousAnonymousover 17 years ago
Encounters of the eastern kind

For a moment I thought that it reminds me of ‘breaking bread’ with a friend (or an enemy, to turn him/her into a friend) but then I thought: Nah, not with the Buddha. Turns out I was closer than I suspected, as this Buddha is more into teaching lessons –little bit the hard way; mental challenges even teasing. All I guess on the long, even freezing road to enlightenment…

I felt like wicked eve on the style (it did sound more like a story broken down by lines), but it never bothered me a bit. (Plus I have seen the reception to stories of this scope in the story section). Most importantly, you turned what could have been “a horrible terrible no good very bad day” into a humorous fun and mindful tale. And that does sound very much like an encounter with a Buddhist spirit.

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