Rakesh pays 300 yen to enter Tokei-ji temple.
Outside, cicadas sing furiously
and I linger, haunted
by a magenta-spotted white lily
with dark red anthers.
The breeze is cooling
in this otherwise bug-hot day.
Three girls speaking French
watch me write this, lose interest,
wander off with their parents.
One has a pierced nose.
Through the leaves of a bush
with tiny clusters of pale lavender flowers,
a large wasp,
striped black and orange-yellow,
prowls like some aerial tiger.
A helicopter sounds in the distance, then fades.
Rakesh emerges. "It was just a room
with some old scrolls."
At the end of the garden path
a Buddha sits,
one hand upraised.
Tokei-ji, Kamakura
August 10, 1997
A loud buzzing nearby: I turn,
but the sound echoes strangely off the gravestones,
and I cannot find its source.
Will a potential mate face the same problem?
They don't have long ... this heat,
their desperate heat,
cannot last.
Engaku-ji, Kamakura
August 10, 1997
How did you pass, and step into the center?
Was it by strength or speed or magic spell?
Or did you simply speak with them and enter
the circle where the sacred lotus dwelled?
These thoughts are all incredible. But then,
it's still more unbelievable that when
you merely chose a spot to sit and breathe, you
generated gods to guard you there
and form a fierce blockade surrounding where
the white and shining blossom grew beneath you.
Hasedera, Kamakura
November 22, 1998