POETRY
Life at the Monastery
Riverside, California
Living in this Buddhist garden
in this wooden hut
(a kuti)
it’s like time flattens out
& turns hazy,
the hours passing like melted dewdrops
or sand shifting slowly
through an unseen hourglass.
Life is different here,
my main friends the cats,
bees & ants that populate
the sloping gardenland
with its multifarious solemn
Buddhist statues in sitting, standing
& blessing positions like still
guardians of purity
from another time.
Trees & flowers fill in
as companions too,
waving & fluttering
& watching me like open-hearted
elders as I pass & smell
their pungent odors.
Biplanes passing overhead
& distant barking dogs complete
the soundscape, reassuring that
yes, this place is still part
of the earthly degraded world.
Luckily I’m not alone –
students inhabit other kutis
but we rarely encounter
one another outside mealtimes,
each on his own to figure out
his fate in this uneventful
place, the Master busy
with his own affairs & sick
recently, his instructions
coming sparsely & spontaneously
when we happen to be
in the same room together,
me the only white guy
here & therefore a step
behind all the Vietnamese–
speaking folks, per usual.
But I can rest & write
& read & commune
with my new friends
the bodhi leaves, branches
& sculptures
and the vast cloud-flecked
California sky above
as the hours pass
(they always do)
& the silence seeps
into my brain like
a subtle balm.
