COMPASSION

After a weekend at Kripalu
he vows to practice yoga
and meditate every day.

He strives to be compassionate
to sentient beings large and small.
He shoos flies and mosquitoes
out the nearest door or window.

Yet he gets hot and bothered
if someone chews with an open mouth,
and he can’t bear to see amputees
or old folks who look more dead than alive.

He’s revolted at how the elderly speak,
whistling through dilapidated dentures,
foaming at the mouth; he must turn away
from hairs in wrong places on faces of vintage ladies.

Hobbling gents bother him when they visit;
they can’t hear or see too well,
and he can’t stand the way they dribble
on his marble bathroom floor.

He knows he has a long way to go
to become the person he wants to be,
since every time a Korean driver
won’t let him cross the street

he rages: ”Slow down motherfucker,
if I hadn’t shed my blood at the Yalu River,
you wouldn’t be here!”

Even though the Chinese tortured Tibetans,
the Dali Lama would never act like that.