Vision as Daybreak

                   Vision as Daybreak

Like white cloud samples brought right down to earth

By Buddha as a guide to finding death

Inside his blank Nirvana, they bring birth

To sacred thoughts, these insights.  They bring breath

To bodhi.  When they come, they come like dawn,

Where gods have lived, forever.  Gold refined

And lasting through this open door, the lawn

Of heavens sages’ thoughts have not defined

Glows always like a stretched out sheet of foil,

As gilding on the halo of a saint

In left behind beliefs, or like a coil

Of gold that turns to meet itself.  They faint,

These faiths, that holiest satori leaves

Behind.  The dawn brings knowledge mind perceives.

Phillip Whidden