The Fountain (from The Eightfold Path)

Here is a poem from my Eightfold Path cycle -- the first, "Right View":

1. The Fountain (Right View)

Life overflows as it was meant to do,

And rises up a glitt'ring jet and falls

And leaps and spills and rises up again

To wet whatever polished, subtle stone

The fountain-maker found to give it shape.

Then once you learn to step outside and watch,

You see vague, strange, and half-familiar shapes

Begin to rise and fade and rise again,

To fall and form amid the whirling foam,

To call up ev'ry longing you thought lost.

These ghosts could eas'ly draw you in again,

To sink into the wild, oblivious spume,

Or else you might just turn your face away

And hope forgetting all of what you see 

Could bring somehow a solitary peace.

That's when you think you might just take a knife

And send it flashing through the bubbling jet,

But that response won't kill the ghosts you grieve,

For when you know that looking's not enough, 

You have to discipline your eyes to see.

In opening this way, you take a risk,

For insight is a gift of violence

That often has an acrid, bitter taste,

Or harbors joys that seem too much to bear,

But teaches you the discipline to see.