A venerable Buddhist master
visited the honorable home
of his Western friends
upon their request.
Every day, upon finishing his meditations,
he would retire to the living room
(his friends both off to work)
to peek inside the window of the mysterious
black box full of pictures that moved
and spoke. Ah, what a hoot!
he exclaimed, in Chinese.
He watched Klinger put on a cocktail dress
and sexy city girls take one off.
Naughty, he murmured, in Chinese.
He saw Diane marry Sam
and then not marry him
and run off with a psychiatrist,
and then to a convent.
Good idea, he grinned,
in Chinese.
He saw Lucy have a baby
and move to Connecticut,
and then suddenly Lucy
had no children and worked
as a secretary for a curmudgeon boss
in the city.
No Chinese came to him
to comment on this.
Finally, he understood what
was happening: Westerners,
when they die went directly to karma hell,
where their lives repeated
over and over and over
until they were canceled.
From that day,
he never again went into the living room,
added an extra hour to his meditation,
lit two incense sticks instead of one
and prayed to the spirit of Buddha
to release him from the eternal wheel of karma.
A week later he was on a plane
back to Nepal.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
A real pleasure to read Sonny! Thank you for sharing! ! *10*! ! ! Thad