Crop Circles

If they have something to say
why don’t they just come out and say it—
he was talking about Crop Circles,
but it might as well have been poetry,
equally strange with its cryptic glyphs.

As if you opened your mouth to speak,
and instead of words
a stream
of flesh-pink peonies.
Who knows where
they come from. Who knows
what arcane messages they encode.

The Buddha too,
in response to a question,
twirled a flower. Ananda, understanding,
broke into blossom. The others
scratched their heads and returned
to the same old, same old.

It is possible, of course, that this poetry
business is a hoax—a bunch of fraternity brats
mowing their pranks into a perfectly good
wheat field. Even so, you need to soar
above the common ground
to get the joke.

As Ananda stepped out
of the tight bud of his body.
And just kept on walking.
Now you tell me—
Was that terrestrial,
or extraterrestrial?









Richard Schiffman is a writer based in New York and a former journalist for National Public Radio. He is the author of two biographies: Mother of All and Sri Ramakrishna, A Prophet For the New Age. His poems have appeared or are upcoming in Poetry East, The North American Review, Southern Poetry Review, 32 Poems, Rosebud, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and many other journals. His “Spiritual Poetry Portal” can be found at: http://multiplex.isdna.org/poetry.htm.