Crack of Shine

ω

             The sky was dark and dreary
             as I trudged along the path,
             with vision dim and bleary,
             under thunderclouds of wrath,

             one foot before another,
             plodding onward through despair,
             yet knowing of no other
             road to lead me anywhere.

             With blackness fast descending,
             though my journey incomplete,
             the trail became unending,
             and I gave up in defeat.

             Surrendering my proneness
             to stouthearted courage prove,
             I foundered in aloneness,
             too dispirited to move.

             Every hope and dream was gone
             as I lay me down supine,
             having no will to go on…
             Then I spied a crack of shine.

             Light was streaming through the cleft
             in a sort of golden haze.
             The impression that it left
             was of some illumined blaze

             which had kept aflame within
             midst my melancholy mood
             and a mindless inner din
             that begot disquietude.

             The fissure in the shadow
             letting in the rays of light
             summoned forth an inner glow
             which was hidden from my sight.

             I stayed there lying prostrate
             for what seemed eternity,
             speculating on my fate
             as to be or not to be.

             At length I managed to rise,
             unsteady but striving still.
             For life goes on– great nature’s wise–
             it can, it must, and it will.

             Yes life goes on– the truth there lies–
             it can, it must, and it will.

             The vision that was present
             has never lost its power.
             What I saw plus what it meant
             comes back in my darkest hour.

             It reappears through thick and thin–
             that crack of shine that dwells within…

             It’s always there through thick and thin–
             that crack of shine that dwells within…


             ~ Harley White

             < November 2016 >

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The inspiration for the poem is from my practice of Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō and the writings of Nichiren Daishōnin. The “crack of shine” could represent the “fundamental nature of existence and all dharmas”, as for instance in one of Nichiren’s writings called Thesis on Becoming a Buddha in a Single Lifetime.

Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō means to devote our lives to and found them on (Nam[u]) the Utterness of the Dharma (Myōhō) [entirety of existence, enlightenment and unenlightenment] permeated by the underlying white lotus flower-like mechanism of the interdependence of cause, concomitancy and effect (Renge) in its whereabouts of the ten [psychological] realms of dharmas [which is every possible psychological wavelength] (Kyō).

The reason that we continually recite Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō