1/

Why stay here
in your little
dungeon?

If you really want
to be free,
make
every
thought
a thought of freedom.

Break your chains.
Tear down the walls.

Then walk the world a free woman.

 

2/

Somehow I kept climbing—
though tired,
hungry,
and weak.

Old, too.

At the top of the mountain,
I spread my outer robe on a rock to dry,
set down my staff and bowl,
took a deep breath,
and looked around.

It was windy up there.

As I was leaning back
against a large gray rock,
the darkness I had carried
up and down
a million mountains—

slipped off my shoulders
and swept itself away
on the wind.

 

-from: "The First Free Women: Poems Inspired by Early Buddhist Nuns"
Re-Imagined by Matt Weingast

 

Marie Bortolotto Artist