Sanjyusanjendo

Remember the plum tree at Sanjyusanjendo
The one with the dark branches and small purple flowers
The one with the thousand petals that fell upon the street,
Only one fell upon your lips,
In ritualistic silence we learn how to speak
The language of frightened birds
caught in the wind,

we pass this way again
unseen and occupying
Like a small rain
In a large sky
A thousand lifetimes will go
Before we meet again
on a small bridge
dividing divinity
and in between
eternity, we
smile
looking back
for words
to say
I remember the plum tree at
Sanjyusanjendo

To read more from Frank Simone about this poem and his views about poetry, click here