“Isn’t this what the mystics meant
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when they spoke of forsaking the world? Not to turn our backs to it,
only to its elaborate plots, its complicated pleasures—”
– Danusha Laméris
Prophetic voices throughout history have encouraged renunciation—a spurning of what they viewed as their dominant cultures’ corrupted priorities of calculated material pursuits and indulgences. Danusha Laméris’ poem Stone spotlights a moment of inspired movement toward renunciation. This, though, is not as much a turning away, a disdaining rejection, as it is a turning toward: a way of being, a focused, cherishing attending; one that is quieter, yet immeasurably nourishing.
Posted by Guest Editor Sam Shapiro
Stone
And what am I doing here, in a yurt on the side of a hill
at the ragged edge of the tree line, sheltered by conifer and bay,
watching the wind lift, softly, the dry leaves of bamboo?
I lie on the floor and let the sun fall across my back,
as I have been for the past hour, listening to the distant traffic,
to the calls of birds I cannot name. Once, I had so much
I wanted to accomplish. Now, all I know is that I want
to get closer to it—to the rocky slope, the orange petals
of the nasturtium adorning the fence, the wind’s sudden breath.
Close enough that I can almost feel, at night, the slight pressure
of the stars against my skin. Isn’t this what the mystics meant
when they spoke of forsaking the world? Not to turn our backs to it,
only to its elaborate plots, its complicated pleasures—
in favor of the pine’s long shadow, the slow song of the grass.
I’m always forgetting, and remembering, and forgetting.
I want to leave something here in the rough dirt: a twig,
a small stone—perhaps this poem—a reminder to begin,
again, by listening carefully with the body’s rapt attention
—remember? To this, to this.
Danusha Laméris
From: Bonfire Opera
Featured with the poet’s permission
Danusha Laméris, a poet and essayist, was raised in Northern California, born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Her first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her work has been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, Orion, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. Her second book, Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series), was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Award and recipient of the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. She was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California, and is currently on the faculty of Pacific University’s low residency MFA program. Her third book, Blade by Blade, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.