Thich Nhat Hanh

I had a great conversation with my friend Adam the other night, who had just returned from studying at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand for several months. We chatted about a lot of things - from Merle Haggard to meditation in various Buddhist traditions. This is a favorite poem of mine we discussed, written by Thich Nhat Hanh. I mailed this to several of my friends on September 12, 2001.

EXISTENCE

It is night.
Rain pelts the roof.
The soul awakens
to a flooded Earth--
a sea of storm
roaring,
then passing.

In that short moment,
shifting lines and shapes,
fleeting,
barely seen.

Before the passing moment tilts
and falls to melancholy,
laughter sounds
in quiet raindrops.

[This poem was written in Saigon in 1965. It was raining hard. There was so much death and killing, so much destruction. And yet in one moment, I could hear the laughter in a raindrop.]