Bodhisattva

The new news is I love you my nudist
the new news is I love you my buddhist

my naked body and budding pleasure
in the weather of your presence

Not whether your presence but how
Oh love a new nodule of neurosis

a posy of new roses  proposing
a new era for us  nobis pacem

Oh my bodhisattva of new roses
you’ve saved me from my no-love neurosis

You’ve saved my old body from the fatwa
Let’s lie down in a bed of roses

a pocketful that rings round the rosy
If this is the end of the world my love

let’s fall down in bed and die
Let’s give a new nod to nothing

Let’s give a rosebud to nothing at all
How I love the new roses of nothing

Oh my bodhisattva of nothing
boding I hope no news but this

For our bodies and souls I hope nothing
but the weather of us in our peace

Credit

Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Arvio. Used with permission of the author.

About this Poem

“When the bodhisattva showed up in this poem, I’m not sure I knew he was on the way to enlightenment (bodhi meaning enlightenment—not body!—and sattva meaning body.) Isn’t this what we long for in love, an evolution toward amorous enlightenment? We want our no-love neurosis to turn into new roses.”
—Sarah Arvio