(for the ten-year anniversary of Plum Village, 1992)
By Svein Myreng
I want to celebrate chaos.
I want to celebrate old worn-out cars,
Broken tiles, ever-shifting
Schedules, misplaced letters,
And nettles next to flower-beds;
To celebrate toilets out of order,
As well as friends who will remind me
That mistakes are good,
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(for the ten-year anniversary of Plum Village, 1992)
By Svein Myreng
I want to celebrate chaos.
I want to celebrate old worn-out cars,
Broken tiles, ever-shifting
Schedules, misplaced letters,
And nettles next to flower-beds;
To celebrate toilets out of order,
As well as friends who will remind me
That mistakes are good, failures a success,
And that a pure heart may prevail
In the non-end.
I want to celebrate being left alone,
Or assailed by talkers
(Or, disturbing others’ quiet).
I want to celebrate gentle smiles,
Good intentions, and especially,
One step after the other.
“If arrow number 100 hits the target,
How can you say the first 99 were failures?”
FROM PLUM POEMS, PARALLAX PRESS, 1999. REPRINTED FROM I HAVE ARRIVED, I AM HOME (2003) BY THICH NHAT HANH WITH PERMISSION OF PARALLAX PRESS, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, www.parallax.org.
Svein Myreng, True Door, lived in Oslo, Norway. Sveinwas ordained a Dharma teacher in 1994. He wrote Plum Poems and A Handbook of Meditation, and translated two of Thay’s books into Norwegian. He passed away in 2007.
