Survey of Eastern Phil

The ideal is to delve into whatever is there,
To take up each item like an expensive
Rock and cultivate its edges, peering down
From pince-nez, lips curled into half
A smile, half sneer, while the giddy prospector
Mines the chances of transaction in the wrinkles
On your face. Is that what Buddha meant,
To treat the senses like a rara avis,
Always under watch and kept in cage? “You must,”
Said maybe, focusing intently on his feelings,
“Let it be.” -- And that was that -- enlightenment.

And some have thought the thought profound, they saw
A swathe of cars hurtling down a lane and the windows
Of the houses half cracked up exhaling sleep and knew
That “this much must be true”, a ‘this’ that takes in everyting
Like a sop of crust in soup or soggy cereal, now I don’t know
A lot about the thing myself, just joyous for a rhyme between
(Or even in) the lines, but it does give a man something
To write about when he scrunches up his face and asks,
“What’s here?”