Friday, September 11, 2015
Jan Elvee––"I've Met a Monk"--(poem)
I've Met a Monk
I've met a monk
who's taken vows
in religious rituals.
You know the ones,
poverty, chastity, obedience,
and others as well,
perseverance, stability,
nine in all,
wholeheartedly intending
to keep each of them
until his death.
Catching me off-guard,
his face suffused with simple honesty,
he says those vows, in point of fact, are negotiable.
We are human,
we find loopholes,
technicalities, escape clauses,
we take a leave of absence.
The only vow he will not break
is one he made watching the sun set
on the day of his mother's burial:
"I vow to live before I die."
And that is the definition of a monk,
that inner archetypal monk that lives in each of us:
someone who commits all-out, all-in,
to the inner journey of becoming who she is,
of living as her essential self.
Jan Elvee
September 10, 2015
