I sing you these words of great renown:
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
Whether nude or wearing a dressing gown,
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
Furrow your brow with a thoughtful frown:
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
In an ocean of wisdom your soul will drown:
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
As sure as Bozo’s a red-haired clown,
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
Shout it from the tallest tower in town:
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
Wear this knowledge like a golden crown:
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
[Image credit: The Life of JWo]
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3 comments:
I'm imagining this being throatily chanted by a ring of slowly circumambulating Buddhist monks in a lofty mountain temple somewhere in the Himalayas.
Great minds think alike, Kevin. That's exactly what I pictured as I was writing this.
Well, strangely enough, your poem does follow, sort of, the structure of one of the more famous sutras: the Heart Sutra, which ends on a thrice-repeated line:
gate gate paragate—parasam-gate, bodhi svaha
gate gate paragate—parasam-gate, bodhi svaha
gate gate paragate—parasam-gate, bodhi svaha
["Gone, gone! Gone beyond, gone utterly beyond! Enlightenment, hail!"]
NB: The "gate" above is pronounced liked the French "gâté," which as you know means "spoiled" (un enfant gâté). Korean Buddhists, instead of chanting gate, chant aché ("ah-tchay").
I don't know whether you plan on doing one of these again, or how closely you might want to hew to a sutra structure again, but the Heart Sutra also features the technique of chiasmus ("what is form is emptiness; what is emptiness is form"), which might be a hoot to fold into your verse.
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