Through miles of jagged rock like a sky of broken shark teeth
There is a pocket of earth and rock smoothed into a home
A clearing with an air of humble majesty and the everyday sacred
Ecstatic truth wrapped in the mundane
There are two inhabitants here
One is a custodian of sorts
A ragged man committed to a singular purpose
And the other, an ascetic of the highest order, living wisdom and compassion
There is an immense statue there of the greatest buddha
Soft, milk white marble contours the imagination into a smile
Just smaller, immersed and emerging from this
Supple colossus of knowing gentleness
Is a golden shimmering figure like the sun snuggled
In a comforter of fog and sky
Days pass and the old, kind worker tends to the dirt and polish and broom
He is lava
Slow but certain
The enlightened one walks and sits
Filling the newly dusted grounds with ubiquitous thought
Days pass in their clearing amidst the rocks and nothing changes
Save where the dust gathers most
And where the thoughtful old gentlemen begins with his broom
Days pass and an otherwise invisible fact emerges
These two characters trade places every day
One always the custodian and the other always the holy man
As if two sides of coin
I am an observer on the wind of this quiet, magical place
My presence a still water tension
My breath held as to keep this constant silent peace
Suddenly, something occurs to me like the first breath to the drowning
These are not days that pass in the animated amber of this experience
They are lifetimes
Centuries have lived and died over the course of this dream
There is a gift in this realization that is not meant for my waking hands
I learn something I cannot exactly bring with me
As these tides of knowing and wakefulness wash over me
Simultaneously I am pitched out of this knowledge
Hurling through the last moments of understanding
I hit the ground running
My whole self aimed at this lost truth
Strides of thought stretch toward that gasp of realization
And I am still running