Bodhisattva by Sarah Arvio

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 24, 2014   Bodhisattva   Sarah Arvio

The new news is I love you my nudist the new news is I love you my buddhist   my naked body and budding pleasure in the weather of your presence   Not whether your presence but how Oh love a new nodule of neurosis   a posy of new roses  proposing a new era for us  nobis pacem   Oh my bodhisattva of new roses you’ve saved me from my no-love neurosis   You’ve saved my old body from the fatwa Let’s lie down in a bed of roses   a pocketful that rings round the rosy If this is the end of the world my love   let’s fall down in bed and die Let’s give a new nod to nothing   Let’s give a rosebud to nothing at all How I love the new roses of nothing   Oh my bodhisattva of nothing boding I hope no news but this   For our bodies and souls I hope nothing but the weather of us in our peace              Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Arvio. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “When the bodhisattva showed up in this poem, I’m not sure I knew he was on the way to enlightenment (bodhi meaning enlightenment—not body!—and sattva meaning body.) Isn’t this what we long for in love, an evolution toward amorous enlightenment? We want our no-love neurosis to turn into new roses.” —Sarah Arvio   Sarah Arvio is the author of night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis (Knopf, 2014). She is a translator for the United Nations in Switzerland and lives in Maryland by the Chesapeake Bay. Most Recent Book by Arvio   night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis (Knopf, 2014) "syntax" by Maureen N. McLane "It Was Raining in Delft" by Peter Gizzi "Blue" by May Swenson Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038