Oubaitori*

One size never fits all.
One’s timeline is not another’s.
One’s age of maturity isn’t measured in years.
One’s way in the world suffices not for others.

Enlightenment arrives at different times and
at different ages for human hosts.
Like a butterfly, it basks in the openness,
readiness of a recipient.

Like the cherry blossom, plum, peach,
and apricot trees, each coming into its own
at its own rate, in its own season,
beauty and sweetness burst open
not in comparison, but in cooperation. 

And like the flowers upon which it lands,
we too bloom in our own treasured time, 
in our own unslotted schedule,
in our own wondrous ways.

*Japanese notion of each of us being constantly in the process of change, blossoming at our own rate.

(Grand Prize – Artists Embassy International, Dancing Poetry Festival, 2025)