The Monk Stood Beside A Wheelbarrow

The monk stood beside a wheelbarrow, weeping.

God or Buddha nowhere to be seen –
these tears were fully human,
bitter, broken,
falling onto the wheelbarrow’s rusty side.

They gathered at its bottom,
where the metal drank them in to make more rust.

You cannot know what you do in this life, what you have done.

The monk stood weeping.
I knew I also had a place on this hard earth.

Poem: JANE HIRSHFIELD, from After (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), www.bloodaxebooks.com

Image: U.S. Air Force loadmasters and pilots assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron load passengers aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Afghanistan, Aug. 24, 2021. Photograph: U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen/American Photo Archive [/] / Alamy Stock Photo

Poems for These Times

‘Poems for These Times’ is a special collection of poetry offered, originally, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is intended as a way of sustaining us, and to give us something on which to meditate together during difficult and challenging times.

There is just one poem each time, so that we can really stay with what is offered. We can read it – perhaps aloud – to ourselves or to any companions in our isolation, and sense the vibrations through our whole being. For poetry has the power to affect us on every level – body, mind, heart and soul. It has a magic, which, in the words of poet Adrienne Rich:

“… goes back very far: the rune; the chant; the incantation; the spell; the kenning; sacred words; the naming of the child; the plant, the insect, the ocean, the configuration of stars, the snow, the sensation in the body… The physical reality of the human voice.”

To read all the poems in the series, click here

Barbara Vellacott