The news came before I’d entered the first letter
in Wordle; before my first cup of tea, harvested
by the hands of a single mother, praying for a better
life for her children—that maybe they’ll get hired
at the factory to deliver cargo, packed in containers
bound for the Port of Miami; the boxes hauled
through warehouses to the shelves of my grocer,
who always smiles with me, asks about my kids.
So later, when I step out into the morning sun
that feeds the leaves of a West Indian Mahogany
under whose branches I’ve often taken refuge,
making an island onto myself, I’ll recall passages
from the Attadiipaa and Heart Sutras—nothing dies
nor is born–this is not the end, but a continuation
About the Poem
The teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, especially those about mindfulness and interbeing, are important in my life and work.
About the Author
Geoffrey Philp is the author of five books of poetry, two collections of short stories, three children’s books, and two novels. His next collection of poems, Archipelagos (Peepal Tree Press), uses Amitav Ghosh’s paradigm to explore the connection between colonialism, vulture capitalism, and fundamentalist Christianity in the Anthropocene era.