It is hard not to suffer. Like taking a breath
Of the short life I’ve lived, I inhale tragedy.
Nothing else should become me except for my grief.
Friends and counseling offer but little relief.
I’m attached to my suffering. I cannot see
That attachment to living must well include death.

Can I speak of detachment the way others do
Who know nothing about it but what they have read
Published in someone’s textbook of Buddhist belief?
Would someone with a moment give that to a thief?
Krishna was quite involved with life. We are misled
By contingent complexities. What else is new?

I’m detached if I fear pain. I want to withdraw
Then construct for myself an escape hatch through which
I will not have to live life on its harshest terms.
I would not then be living. Yet dying affirms
Absoluteness of process. The call to enrich
One’s own path through survival is natural law.