Counting Breads

Sunlight flickers

Escaping around tall prayer flag

surfeited with prayers.

The morning wind blows,

not too gently.

with promises of an uncomfortable afternoon

Old Dawa walks with his prayer wheel

and Rayban glasses.

Sending prayers upto heaven,

to descry his death.

Whose weight sits heavily on him,

along with remembrances of sins,

now recollected with the wisdom of age.

His faltering feet,

adhere to the rules of rheumatism

while he mumbles a prayer for compassion.

Propelled by some need to live forever.

At the feet of a prayer chant,

sleeps another day.

Agnes in her borrowed dress,

fingers her rosary with the shyness

and trepidation of a new lover.

The beads slip between fingers.

So that she falters between her chants

and loses sight

of the smiling Buddha in her mind.

She saw her life gape greedily at her

full of emptiness

and fled.

Only to be taught that the aim of life

was "emptiness".

The eyes of heaven,

quietly wink again

Sonam smiles at neighbours,

sliding over queries and prayers

She would like to have

a turquoise ring.

Large and blue.

The golden Buddha's eyes,

burn her wandering heart,

and dropping a coin into a beggar's bowl.

She worries about a "chubba"

for the new year

and milk for breakfast.

The dust spawns majestically,

uninterpreted illusions and dreams.

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Himal Southasian
www.himalmag.com