The Confusion of Awareness

The Confusion of Awareness

A Buddhist with storage problems,
I lie awake nights and think.
Possessions on earth mean nothing,
All just dishes piled up in the sink.

How many glasses and plastics?
How many baskets and shelves?
If everything's got to be somewhere,
I must be the one living in hell.

Boxes full of papers,
Newspapers, magazines,
Pieces of started poems,
Possible acts and scenes,
More than a few overdue bills,
Papers on prescription pills--
Non-virtual flotsam and jetsam:
My environment factually portrays my ills.

Too many irons in the fire,
Enthusiam sparked, then burned.
As from an old book of matches,
This human computer is giving up.
I admit I'm in need of crashing.

All these papers ought
To become sort of recycled ashes,
But not before one more look--
Hoping to learn something.

I don't believe
It's theoretically been heard
Of finding Buddhist's calm
In this clutter, grown absurd.