Quick note:

To quote Italo Calvino, “A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” For me, Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha is a book I have read in the many seasons of my life. And everytime I return to it a little older, hopefully a little wiser, and I find something new that calls me to attention. This is my interpretation of the arc of it.

-Sid 1-

Sid was just a child

When he met Death that first time

They would be old friends

-Sid 2-

From his father’s house,

He stole away into the

Starry ink black night

-Sid 3-

The ferryman laughed

Told him what Buddha could not

While rowing across

-Sid 4-

Perhaps in the flesh

And Kamala’s perfumed house,

The voice, the music

-Sid 5-

Perhaps in the mind

The click of abacus beads

Double accounting

-Sid 6-

When the years had passed

“Why are you disquieted?”

Crossed over again

-Sid 7-

At a loss finally

He studied the cold bright stars

The river rhythms

-Sid 8-

He laughed at the child

But gently, kindly, softly

“Stay in the damn boat”

-Sid 9-

“Hello there, old friend”

Slowly setting the chessboard

“I’ve learned alot”

Brian Fitzpatrick

Fiction & Poetry

Sid