Our #TankaTuesday prompt this week is a #PhotoPrompt. Diana Peach chose the image:

Pixabay.com, compliments of “Pretty sleepy.”

“Nirvana”

Before you stands the door to Nirvana…

Now is the time to break free from the chains that bound you to this earthly plane. Let go of all the restraints that held you back. Breathe in the quiet serenity. Enter the Bardo—the liminal state between death and rebirth. Walk with the hands of time through the red door into that which lies beyond…

darkness of rebirth
held inside the womb of time
sacred realism
flashes of past and present
a transcendental release

Our existence cannot suggest any discontinuity in time and space between the place and moment of death to those of rebirth. Time and space unite each reality as one.

© Colleen M. Chesebro

2019 Steve and Doreen, our house in Arizona

I wrote this tanka prose for my beloved brother-in-law, Steven Chesebro, who passed through the red door on February 15, 2022. May he rest in peace. So, Mote, it be!

Namaste. 🙏🏻 ❤️

64 thoughts on “Nirvana, #TankaTuesday”

  13. I am also wish to send condolences to the passing of your brother-in-law, Colleen! Its always a hart time loosing someone, whom we never believed could leave us. But i am sure we will reunion all together in future. Please keep the drinks cold! 😉 Best wishes, Michael

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  14. I’m so sad to hear of your brother’s passing and am sending love and hugs in abundance, my friend. This is an absolutely beautiful tribute and reflection on the portal of life and death. Amazing, Colleen 💕🙂💕

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  15. Sympathies and condolences to you and your family. Such as it is, endings, beginnings, beginnings, endings. A lovely way to stop and pause, reflect, and share your blessings for his next leg’s journey, as shared in your poem. May you all find joy and love, in light, as you mourn and grieve, knowing that celebration of the soul in this life, carries us along, makes it a bit easier, as we linger in memories and moments shared. Namaste

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  16. What a beautiful tribute to your brother-in-law, Colleen, and my condolences to the family. The way you describe that transition between worlds strikes a big chord with me. We will all experience it. Thank you for sharing!

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  20. I’m so sorry to hear about your brother-in-law’s passing, Colleen. His journey continues bathed in the light of your love. A beautiful and touching poem. Many many hugs to you and your family ❤ ❤

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  24. I’m so sorry for your loss, Colleen. Your poem is a lovely tribute. It’s amazing how the photo turned out to be the perfect segue image. Blessings to you and your family always but especially during this difficult time. Lots of love, Marsha

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      1. It always is no matter how much they are suffering and we don’t want that. I am reading an interesting book in which one of the main characters dies. The weird son comes up with an explanation of death, that really helped his mom. It’s something like, “When dad is away, he’s not here, he’s there. When he’s there, he can’t be here, but you know he’s there. Now he’s there.” Something like that, anyway, the idea was that he was still with her (and him) even though he wasn’t “here.” I thought it was a pretty comforting thought. The book is Night, Sleep, Death, the Stars by Joyce Carol Oates.

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