Waterlily Fire, 4. Fragile

Muriel Rukeyser, 1962

I think of the image brought into my room
Of the sage and the thin young man who flickers and asks.
He is asking about the moment when the Buddha
Offers the lotus, a flower held out as declaration.
“Isn’t that fragile?” he asks. The sage answers:
“I speak to you. You speak to me. Is that fragile?”