Great Vows For All Part Four

Dharma Talk January 14, 2026

Appreciation and a bow to Domyo Burk for her podcast on the topic of Bodhicitta: https://zenstudiespodcast.com/bodhicitta/

For Renee Nicole Good

Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026

by Amanda Gorman

They say she is no more,

That there her absence roars,

Blood-blown like a rose.

Iced wheels flinched & froze.

Now, bare riot of candles,

Dark fury of flowers,

Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,

Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

Crouches our power,

The howl where we begin,

Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater

Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible,

& all the greater,

When the labour

& bitter anger of our neighbors

Is moved by the love

& better angels of our nature.

What they call death & void,

We know is breath & voice;

In the end, gorgeously,

Endures our enormity.

You could believe departed to be the dawn

When the blank night has so long stood.

But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,

When they forever are so fiercely Good.

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