There is dawn in the Dalai Lama’s smile.
Though there are thousands of students in the Lehigh Auditorium,
Each is turned towards him, as if,
After a night of storms and wind,
Sunrise is finally here.

And I believe him when he haltingly says that
As soon as I let go of the fiction of myself,
And accept there is no “I”,
All my worries and disappointments will vanish
And I too will smile like that.

When I return home, it’s evening,
In time to help my wife clean up after her yard sale.
Before I can tell her what I’ve learned,
She shows me, with a handful of cash,
How good business had been.

She was especially happy at selling her collection of Precious Moments’
figurines,
Little sugary ceramics, with eyes like chocolate kisses,
Which mark weddings and birthdays and friendships,
That former friends and estranged family members had given her.
They were once her pride and joy,

But now only gather dust.
The only thing, she tells me,
That no one showed any interest in
Was my collection of history and poetry books,
Which I now must lug back into the basement.