A Soul, A Quarter

Tiny pilgrims wandering,
Blending with sunlight;
The light never pure or blemishless.
The population stirs
Within the attic,
More travelers in the sunbeam,
Reaching for elusive heaven.
Little they know of boxes
Or memories, or that
One contains the other
Here in their musty society.
So I throw wide the gates
To one such city
Of faded memories lying
Categorized in plastic...

The prisoners freed encircle
My head, pleading for
An open window or door.
But I am merciless, and
Wave them off;
Offsetting many from
The Road to Heaven.
I search inside their
Stagnant homes, and
Memories yield to me a
Yellowed Jesus Christ.
I lift him up to me,
Eye to eyes, and
See again the weight of
Sacrifice.

The tears he shed are old
And rusty, the plumbing
Left untouched too long.
The blood has dried on
Head and hands,
A pile of scabs replacing
The Cup of Life.

Next I find a broken Buddha,
A tired old man, still
Sitting in supplication.
His face still holds the
Smile of serenity, but
Its lines are tight and
Simply tired.
The Eye has dimmed,
And the Light has faded.
He says, "Form is..."
But his Lotus falters.

The dusty pilgrims settle on
Each their brows, claiming my
Jesus Christ and broken Buddha
As memory's possession.
But my sweaty hands clung tightly
To each, washing them of
Each inhabitant of
The Road to Heaven.
I abandoned that world of age
And memories long gone,
Leaving the gates to the city
Still open.
The prisoners freed began to
Settle there, repopulating the
Memories I stirred.

Back among the changing present,
I gently cleansed my
Broken Buddha.
I washed the tears from
Jesus' face, and removed the scabs
Hindering his flowing blood.
The two I set upon my shelf,
Hand in hand and
Mingling there.
Sacrifice and Serenity pooled
And blended, blood and
Smile fading together.

A man came by and
Said to me, "I'll buy them from you
For a half a dollar."
I asked the man, "Is that all they're worth,
My Jesus and Buddha?
What is the market today?"
He grinned and replied,
"A half a dollar is quite the steal.
A soul today is worth a quarter.
If I were you, I'd skip the haggling.
No man will give you more than this.
A Jesus Christ and broken Buddha
Are all too common to be worth too much.
Take it from me."

Turning away, he shrugged and left.
I watched him go, then shut the door.
Then I traveled back up the stairs,
And entered again the Musty Past.
There I deposited once again,
My Jesus Christ and broken Buddha.
Tiny pilgrims protested again above my head,
Then attacked me, and so I sneezed.
The gates to the city were open still,
And I made to leave when
I heard again:
"Form is no form, and
No form is only dreams.
Do it, maybe, in rememberance of me."
I said, "I'm sorry, but I have things to do.
I'll take you out someday,
When you're both worth more."

Zen quote of the day:
"To know what you know and to know what you don't know, that is real wisdom."
~ Confucius