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.
