A Heaven Beyond Description

author's note:

Butterfly!  These words
from my brush
are not flowers...
only their shadows.
       -- Soseki (trans. Beilenson/Behn)


A HEAVEN BEYOND DESCRIPTION

I'm told
any heaven worthy of the name
would be beyond description

maybe so, but I doubt
I could remain quiet

because in those rare moments
when light floods my being
I'm overwhelmed by the desire
to express a feeling so heavenly

and though I know I can never find
the perfect words
I'm driven to keep searching--
even long afterwards.

Yes, my efforts
always end in frustration
but

sometimes, amid the silence
that follows in the wake of my words...

I arrive back
at the place I seek

for a moment at least:

that heaven.

© 2016, Michael R. Patton
listening to silence: poems of meditation