Speak the Many Names of Beauty

Speak the Many Names of Beauty

Full Moon November 1, 2020

 

Abiding in this ephemeral world

like a lotus in muddy water

the mind is pure & goes beyond

thus we bow to Buddha.

—Verse of Purity While Abiding in the World

 

Artists gather in this world

to wade deep into the circle

of intimacy with ending—

beginninglessness.

 

We say their names

& visualize their faces

wrathful & peaceable.

 

Standing within adversity

forests say their names

from tundra to mesa to jungle.

 

Buddhas congregate at every intersection

holding signs, empty agenda,

pointing to the snow-gray sky

where geese flow south

calling & not-calling

in fullness & aloneness.

 

Under the first snow

the name sunflower

beams ever-hopeful.

 

When the moon is an almost

& your companion asleep

the power out & only mind

moves through the house

of your unique heart

what name arises

flaming into vivid being?

 

I say it is a name

of beauty—whatever

it may be.

 

Returning

to beauty

is our always full—

our homeward

migration,

our strength

& our means

of witness

& the ground

of our abiding

effort to remember

the full moon

of our inheritance.

 

 

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Painting by Suiko McCall, suiko.art 
She Who Knows Her Inner Consort, 2020. Ink on paper, 14×11″.