Meditation on Bliss

“Why write about bliss? There’s a war on!”

War was invented by the flowers,
as the English and Aztec knew.
Lavenders attacked jacarandas
with luscious scents and iodine.
Soon the rhododendrons learned
to poison the earth by opening blossoming
empires of color. The bees made golden
by pollen produced the honey that drove
the foraging Macedonians mad
in Alexander’s campaign.
Then petals fell in legion;
soon there were just the endless acts
of blossoming holding the flowery world
together.
Bliss exists outside
of time; it lives in eternal moments
inside and outside of war. It knows
the bloom of dust borne up by the bullet
that misses its mark, and leaps in joy
as the target stumbles beyond the sights.
It is one and is always winning.
It only demands complete surrender.

~~ Allan Johnston

First published in  Poetry East, #60 (Fall, 2007).