Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

I pray to keep falling in love with everyone I meet.
                  —Mark Nepo, from “In Love with the World”

Not the tick, no.
Surely it is not sacred.
Do not try to tell me so.
Repulsive tiny blood suckers.
I do not wish to be impressed
by their survival, do not want
to respect how they have thrived
since the first flowering plants
arrived on earth over
one hundred million years ago.
I do not want to praise
their hard protective shells, nor how
efficiently they swell,
nor the ease with which they sense
moisture, heat, vibration.
Rather to vilify what disgusts me.
Repulsive little carriers of sickness.
Vile little vectors of disease.
What joy is there in knowing
a tick is so effective and good
at doing what a tick was made to do?
Could it be greater than the perverse joy
I get from my hatred? It is clear
my repulsion does not affect the tick.
Oh, clenched heart. Oh, clenched fist.
Where is the line between what I love
and what I resist?
Is it true there is holiness in everything?
How do I wound myself
when my heart and hand are closed?
Let my prayer not be to fall in love,
but to open to the prayer I do not yet know.

With thanks to Ellie from the Hebden Bridge group who pointed us towards this poem.