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Impermanence
There’s uproar in the poplars overhead—
A dry wind surging from the sun-struck west,
Already hot with power and vastly spread
Over these plains and not yet come to rest.
Out on a jaunt, I push through weeds and grass.
With no fixed goal, I swelter, cough, and sneeze,
Assailed by heat. Above, great cloud-ships pass
Eastward, sublimely balanced on the breeze.
The charging weather flings up whirls of dirt.
The poplar leaves are shaking with each gust
As if in celebration, rage, or hurt,
While I squint through a blur of curling dust.
Downhill the swamp lies green; rich grasses grow
Where ravaged tree-wrecks, these all dead, loom stark
And crooked with discarded limbs below—
Unsightly specters with split sleeves of bark.
The western sun is glaring on the scene
While tiny birds, a hapless cluster, cling
To branches high in blue above the green
And seem to have no strength to flap or sing.
And I, much buffeted by age and wind,
Straggle on thorny ground, unbalanced, slow,
And wary of a fall, with changes dinned
Into my senses as the mad gales blow.
Against impermanence no form can stay
Whole and unscarred. I bend beneath the threat
Of storm and loss. My injury today
Is only seeing here more failure yet.
Behind a shrub I mean to find relief
In shade where I can shield myself the best
And hope to be, somehow, preserved from grief
While blazing power pours in from the west.
I almost tumble. Here low thistles sting
As past my ears more dust and spinning leaves
Fly roaring east. New minutes only bring
New insults, which the passive earth receives.
It’s true, green saplings struggle up among
Debris from former and exhausted years,
But for how long shall I dare call them young?
Vain growth wears out and bleak decay appears.
I crouch, repelled by upset all around,
The woods disheveled, lawns in disarray,
No butterflies, no life on dusty ground,
And summer’s atmosphere made sick and gray.
Time in a tumult rolls. Here I endure,
Though no high thing, no presence, reaches me,
Till of an absence suddenly I’m sure.
I marvel that the wind has ceased to be.
Just as a breath expended slides away,
The frightful, plunging, disarranging blast
Is blast no more, with nothing more to say.
Now quietness returns to me at last.
I wait for clear air to arrive. It does,
To overrule the blazing and the bleak.
Cicadas, two or three, renew their buzz
And set a fitting rhythm as they speak.
I look about, and in the east I view
Landscape hard-beaten but recovering.
Cloud-ships far off have traveled free and true.
Birds in the dead trees flap and maybe sing.
Strangely in change itself I find a hope,
Not for an age or a year but merely now,
Because above the drab and somber slope
Rise butterflies as timeless laws allow.
There’s freshness in the poplars overhead—
A small breeze lilting from the sun-struck west.
Who knows how long? It’s cool and vastly spread
Over these plains and not yet come to rest.
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Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano is a native of Kentucky who for many years has been a bhikkhu, a Buddhist monk of the Theravāda tradition.
Another personally enriching experience contemplating the complexities of nature from the western searing sun and worrisome wind to the pleasantness of the cooling wind and new growth sharing the imagery even the harshness of nature is not permanent.
Excellent descriptive language brings to life the image of a hot, sweltering landscape. The dry wind and “whirls of dirt” driven by the wind storm stand in striking visual contrast with the rich grasses of the green swamp below. These images, together with images of numerous dead or dying things lying below or driven forward by the wind– ravaged tree wrecks, discarded limbs, dust and spinning leaves, debris from “former and exhausted years”– stand in contrast to the living things that cling precariously to their perches for a moment´s stability– the shaking poplar leaves, the tiny birds, the speaker himself, shielded by a shrub from the blazing destructive power that pours in from the west. All these image typify the struggle of living things to survive and thrive in opposition to the forces that wear down and destroy. “Against impermanence no form can stay whole and unscarred.” That´s the central theme of the poem. Yet the poem ends with new life springing up from the decay, and the speaker finding quietness return to him as clear air arrives, overruling “the blazing and the bleak”. Recovering landscapes, singing birds, clouds-ships still afloat, rising butterflies and buzzing cicadas all speak of rebirth, which bring the speaker a present but not enduring hope; for the lilting, cool, refreshing breeze blowing at the end of the poem, no less than the dry hot, destructive wind at the beginning, has “not yet come to rest.” This lack of resolution strikes me as sad, since it suggests that impermanence itself is the only enduring reality we face. Peace and rest, if they come, last only for a season, for soon, another change will take place and be “vastly spread over these plains”. A poignant ending, to be sure; but how beautifully the poem has expressed the perennial theme of mutability– the passing character of all that we see and experience in the world around us.
I love the rich language in this poem, but I didn’t think it needed to be so long. Closure should come quicker, which is how I thought things were done in old Kentucky.
“Strangely in change itself I find a hope.” The smoothly musical description of long suffering through the heat seems paradoxically calming, but only a change of weather would demonstrate impermanence. And the urgent touches of personal experience anticipate it. With leisure time, I much enjoyed poem and thought.