"Make of yourself a light" <br />said the Buddha, <br />before he died. <br />I think of this every morning <br />as the east begins <br />to tear off its many clouds <br />of darkness, to send up the first <br />signal-a white fan <br />streaked with pink and violet, <br />even green. <br />An old man, he lay down <br />between two sala trees, <br />and he might have said anything, <br />knowing it was his final hour. <br />The light burns upward, <br />it thickens and settles over the fields. <br />Around him, the villagers gathered <br />and stretched forward to listen. <br />Even before the sun itself <br />hangs, disattached, in the blue air, <br />I am touched everywhere <br />by its ocean of yellow waves. <br />No doubt he thought of everything <br />that had happened in his difficult life. <br />And then I feel the sun itself <br />as it blazes over the hills, <br />like a million flowers on fire- <br />clearly I'm not needed, <br />yet I feel myself turning <br />into something of inexplicable value. <br />Slowly, beneath the branches, <br />he raised his head. <br />He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.<br /><br />Mary Oliver<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-buddha-s-last-instruction/
