A meditation by a tree upon the noble truth that the root of all suffering is desire

At fifty I'm coming into my Buddha-hood -

I'm finally starting to let go of desire.
Not the immediate lust
for sex and wine and song -
that is a thing of the body, not the mind.
No - I'm beginning to loosen my grip on should -
the corrosive expectations 
that have been scourges on the present,
the slave master who wielded the whip
driving relentlessly toward power and wealth,
driving with the indifference that comes from knowing
there were a long line of bodies 
to step up when this one failed.
But the hand holding the whip
is attached to the same body 
as the back upon which the blows land.
"To what end, all this toil?" I ask
in my best 18th century diction,
and try to sit still with an empty mind,
here,
beneath this tree,
with its leaves still heavy with spring,
but I am only beginning to let go. 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/A-meditation-by-a-tree-upon-the-noble-truth-that-the-root-of-all-suffering-is-desire-etd208

YouTube: https://youtu.be/kIzS7j0bqu8