Three poems | Lifestyle.INQ

OCTOBER 27, 2022

17Jan15 Super page 9AB

 

Ouroboros

 

The ring of Saturn

is a dragon consuming its own tail

to be reborn.

Shiva. Samsara. Ouroboros.

Chaos before change;

self catabolizing and anabolozing self.

Hunger and thirst flow endlessly in cycles

through its body, from mouth to tail,

and in doing so they are contained,

no longer pulling the dragon to and fro

in search of being filled

by something outside itself.

As Saturn returns to the point of our birth,

we behold the dragon’s perpetual becoming.

 

 

 

Turning aside in Kyoto

 

No GPS, no Wi-Fi; no Waze.

The first thing my half-worried eyes latch on to

is moss. All shades of green.

Dark and light. Pistachio. Avocado. Mould.

Clinging to dirt and to stone.

A whole forest of them at our feet.

We are at a temple made of dark wood

whose name we cannot Google.

We were to walk toward Gion to go geisha-spotting,

and yet, with all maps and wireless lifelines lost,

here in the opposite side of the city,

a maiko glides right by us—

her red lips breaking the greenery,

her kimono swaying like silk sails,

her floral kanzashi drifting from her hair like chimes.

Without stopping, she smiles at us, as if to say,

“Here I am! Where are you going?”

 

 

 

Synod

 

Synod, noun,

a meeting

of the sun and the moon.

 

The sun appears to move with respect to the stars,

but it is only the moon that shifts from one point to the next—

from newness into fullness and then newness again.

 

Throughout, the earth sees the moon change his face

but says nothing. It is merely a witness to longing.

 

Sun and moon.

It takes one cycle for them to meet

and to part.

The moon shall follow his orbit into shadow

while the sun shall stay in place, ever glowing,

as if nothing has changed.

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