The mornings come but we make ourselves not the light, and the Buddha returns not. In fact, why should he? Should he return, he will only have to make a trip first to Kyoto and then to Copenhagen. Instead, what we have now is “the inconvenient truth” of our own sad making, and we keep our eyes shut to the pressing reality. We look into the faces of the “frightened crowd”, not only of this age but of the times to come in sorrowful movement. This is the result of clipped and grouchy human potential, and if “something of inexplicable value” has to emerge we will have yet to know what the Buddha meant when he said “Make of yourself a light”.
There is sorrow for me in the North, where the black wind blows,
(Hush, O Wind of the dirges, O Voice of the restless dead!)
The ache of its cruel keening thro’ my heart like an arrow goes,
I see in the tossing waters the sheen of a dear bright head.
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