SPIRITUALITY/MANTRA

A Mantric Dream

A dream poem spilling into the day

Image by the author.

tears became my dawn today
while waking in the dark
a mantra softly lilting in my mind

on the other side of this consciousness
that moves this pen and spills the words
I had watched two Tibetan monk artists
transfer a sacred image onto a cliff’s face

one painted with earthen hues
the other chiseled away excess rock
my focus zoomed on each chiseled piece
as they fell away

to my wife, I said:
I could do that

and the next moment
I, the Westerner?
I, the Tibetan?
held a little hammer
and a blunted chisel the size of a large nail
and with each speck of dirt
I pulverized into dust
Om Mani Padme Hum
singing in Tibetan within my head

a tiny centipede scurried upon its little legs
as I labored? meditated?
carefully I removed it from harm’s way
as a Tibetan…