whispered lineage

Around the Heart, Anti-Clockwise

bodies passing thick along hewn walls

                  revolving Gautama stupa       his bodhi/mind

their prostrations          law of reversed effort

anti-intention

                  graceful/clumsy           no separation

this whole thing a dance    –    Shiva limbs, Chenrezig arms  –

        w/- DUALITY

sadhus sitting naked             watchful under trees

         smoke bidi                                    avoid the temple

wait for nothing

there’s nothing to wait for

                                   here

              choking on humid

                            desire for desirelessness

these latitudes non-tropic

              dispassionate fecundity bursts in

seed-brilliant pods of eyes       and stars          and mind

                                                                birthing in fallow Bihar plain

what went on here

500 years before the Cross

                  cow-splat         shady underside of fig-trees

same birds of light                   in these leaves

                     beggar-boy at the gates

waiting to be taken

Across.

Bodhgaya, India, January 2001