After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal
exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping
profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I
come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder,
and the whole world sparks and flames.
Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds
singing sutras to this suffering world.
I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,
since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have a song.
~ David Budbill, "What Issa Heard" in MOMENT TO MOMENT
