Desire, Attachment, etc.

I wrote this sitting in the Millenium Library, March 28/06 (the first few lines were inspired by something cara had written, the rest by our discussions at the time, but it now seems relevant again...)




We will still need this need
all of us
me here steeping in our anger
at the library


we will still need
this

something else
something other

than this

need


it's always the same
for us monks, nuns, etc

all of us swearing off desire,
disavowing the flesh

and yet it tortures us and
we will fall in love and have children,
lose our cool and

develop attachments to things

even though we know
they will break us

and our
hearts in
the end

do everything we said
we would never do like
grow old and
see friends less and
become attached to this body we live in

and so it didn't work out and we still suffer still
desire

and it's our last chance to turn around and
follow silence into our own graves and we decline
the priesthood,
keep being
in love and
feeding our cats and
fighting against weakness and ourselves and
each other and no
mortification of the flesh no
self-flagellation can
turn this around so

what else to do but
go on

in love.