Shoveling Snow With Billy Collins Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Shit! It's cold!
I wish these white people
Would stop imagining me
Into all these incongruous scenes
And leave me to my eternal reverie
At the base of a peepal tree
In a climate more conducive to stillness.

Isn't it bad enough that they make me
Into garden ornaments and paperweights?
Now I'm fat; now I'm thin.
Now I'm laughing; now I grin.
Whoever said I was some exotic Santa Claus
With the gift of Nirvana waiting in some sleigh?

Whether it is Hesse with his vision of Siddhartha
Or the Berkley types in Birkenstocks and beads
Who think that they can light a few candles
And do some chanting and I will appear before them
Like an Eastern Genie with all the answers in my lamp,
I have had enough of these New Age grifters.

Which part of, "You too will die, " sounds easy?
Which part of my journey could you complete?
How is me shoveling this fluffy stuff enlightening
To you or me or your readers?

If you truly wish to achieve a state of inner peace,
Start with silence, please.
Stop observing the snow and become one with it.
Stop talking about the honking of the geese
And fly with them - South! - in your mind.

Leave me to the work you would have completed
And fall into a rhythm like a heartbeat.
Let the movement of your body still your mind.
Then here, in this inhospitable driveway,
Your inconsequential comments will cease
And you can enter a meditative state with
No snow; no cold; no seasons; no time;
No Buddha; no you.

And while you are shoveling this God-awful stuff,
At one with your suburban world,
I will return to my jungle,
My waking dream undisturbed,
My toes not wet and cold
My robes not dusted with snow.

When you awaken to your separateness
Try not to forget how it felt to be and not to be.
That is the answer!