Enough

Enough.

Like Gautama

at Praghbodi,

after subsisting on grains of rice

and the belief that

asceticism

was the only way

to know God.

Did he utter that

word to the others,

who must have

castigated his descending steps

toward the

eventual

full moon sit

under the tree?

No deprivation of joy is grounds

to build.

And those who do

are but egos

masquerading—

as the only,

the righteous,

the sovereign.

Yet aren't we all subsisting,

all starving—

until such time:

the threshold comes,

the line is crossed,

the wall is reached,

and the word is said—

Enough?

Yet too long, it seems,

we merely accept

our few grains,

bowing with padded, bloated belief

that deservability

is a trek for the sturdiest shoe—

the lineage of agreement

drawn by those who redistrict worth

by propriety and morals,

by degrees of somebodiness.

Ah, but you—

I hear you,

even though you’re not speaking.

I sense it coming:

your line,

your wall,

your threshold.

I’m sweeping it,

even now, in preparation

for your sweet arrival—

burning cinnamon

to encourage you through

your final hesitations.

I’m here.

We all are—

chanting,

O how deep and e'er expanding!

Come and sing

Enough.

~ David Ault