Wabi Sabi

We are continuing in this issue our ReCollection section, looking back through The BeZine past issues and blog posts in this, our tenth year. This poem comes from The BeZine Volume 3 Issue 2, on November 15, 2016, which had the theme of “Loving Kindness.” Our Founding Editor, Jamie Dedes, z”l, wrote this poem in 2013 and was very fond of it. It seems a fitting closing to both this month’s ReCollection section and the June 2023 issue (Volume 10 Issue 2).

if only i knew
what the artist knows

about the great perfection
in imperfection

i would sip grace slowly
at the ragged edges of the creek

kiss the pitted
face of the moon

befriend the sea
though it can be a danger

embrace the thunder of a waterfall
as if its strains were a symphony

prostrate myself atop the rank dregs on the forest floor,
worshiping them as compost for fertile seeds
and the breeding ground for a million small lives

if i knew what the artist knows,
then i wouldn’t be afraid to die,
to leave everyone

i would be sure that some part of me
would remain present
and that one day you would join me
as the wind howling on its journey
or the bright moment of a flowering desert

if i knew what the artist knows,
i would surely respond soul and body
to the echo of the Ineffable in rough earthy things

i would not fear decay or work left undone
i would travel like the river through its rugged, irregular channels
comfortable with this life; imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete