This Damn Bardo Thing
(for Sandy)
On the death of a friend
On the death of a lover
“In bereavement, we come to appreciate at the deepest, most felt level exactly what it means to die while we are still alive. The Tibetan term bardo, or “intermediate state,” is not just a reference to the afterlife.”
Pema Khandro Rinpoche
This damn Bardo thing
That I am passing through.
My past life slipping away behind me.
My future self coalescing and elusive, not yet born.
The present is a hollow drum
And someone is beating that drum with bones.
Memories and dreams rush into the vacuous space
Beneath the skin of the drum
And I can’t tell the dreams from the memories.
The incoherent images are an endless swarm of gnats
That sting me and die
And their dry carcasses are scattered about.
All I see in this dim and constantly changing light
Is random and disconnected phenomenon.
The centre does not hold.
There is no centre.
This damn Bardo thing
Is an endless twilight of shadows and sounds.
Shadows leading me astray
Through this maze.
Sounds; clanging bells, howling winds,
Trumpets blasting out rhythmic pains that must be vanquished or embraced.
The silent space between two thoughts
Is a momentary reprieve from the twisted thinking
Of the dying mind.
In this labyrinth
I long for the lover I cannot touch or see
But I hear her voice, mellifluous like honey,
and her smell of mint and honeycomb is all around me.
She is close
And she is far away
And this ache, I cannot vanquish.
When I embrace this yearning, it vanquishes me.
Holding this desperate hunger
Rips at the last shreds of my vanity
And claws at the thin trembling skin
That is the last remnant of my separate self.
But I can’t let this longing go, I can’t set this craving free.
And I would willingly endure another turn of the wheel,
If only I could touch her one more time.
