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When the World

MJ Moore (Pranjakavi)

When the world comes crashing down,

all the streamers and bright-colored balls,

the artificial, airy structures

constructed with blithe and perfect faith

burst and plummet.

Hold the tattered shreds and empty husks,

holy as first light and final star.

 

You cannot build again.

No retracing, no rewinding,

no perfect ending

waiting in the highest branches.

Only the threads of raucous crows —

prophets adamant and shrill.

 

Rags draped over your outstretched arms,

palms up, you have only this to proffer —

a benediction of ruin,

held luminous as a feather,

now resting,

now spinning away,

the softest breath of life.

MJ More, “When the World,” from Topography of Dreams, Copyright © 2020, Mary Jean Moore, Blue Light Press. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

About The Author

In her book, “Topography of Dreams,” Pranjakavi (MJ Moore) delves deeply into images and sensory detail to illuminate the potential of everyday life to invite metamorphosis. The reader feels Pranjakavi’s delight in the richness of being a sensual creature even as the author provides ample glimpses of the limits of mundane pleasures — given their transitory nature. Still, she is a writer who courts positivity, treating even the landscape of impermanence with lightness, playfulness, and an unnamed but clearly alluded to hopefulness. It’s this kind of optimism that I experience throughout her poem “When the World,” which grows curiously stronger as the poem proceeds, even though it only hints at how its mysterious “benediction of ruin” can simultaneously be a signal of hope.

I was fortunate enough to meet Pranjakavi (whose name means “Poet of Wisdom”*) on the retreat on which she was ordained. As I experience her writing, I’m reminded of the beautiful, canonical Buddhist text we studied which, through rich imagery and symbolism, invites the student to imagine a realm far beyond the world to which we typically entrust our happiness but which fails us repeatedly. It disappoints us due to our own inability to see it clearly for what it is. Pranjakavi’s poetry gently, playfully, and sometimes with a surprisingly direct (if kindly) touch entices her readers to develop the kind of vision that can free us.

* In the Triratna Order, names given at ordination describe qualities the preceptor perceives in the ordinand as well as what, specifically, this new Order Member can continue to develop — live into more and more. In this way, names are meant to be more inspirational than descriptive.

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