Adamantine
In Yehlio, a jagged scar
runs across the neck
of Queen’s Head Rock,
a vandal’s foiled plot
to fence an ancient land-
mark on the art market
scarred stone hardly bears
her royal profile,
years from now to fall like
Franconia’s Great Stone
Face, the Old Man
collapsing, overnight
in a slip of rock
*
At 82, Luciano Mares remembers
the night his house burned to the ground
and wonders:
DOES A MOUSE HAVE BUDDHA NATURE?
I had some leaves
burning outside,
so I threw it in
the fire, mouse
trap – the heat
loosened the glue
incensed,
the creature ran
back towards the house
where flames lit
the curtains &
spread up from there
destroying everything
*
From the remains
of his cremation,
the monks recovered
the seat of Thich Quang Duc’s
consciousness –
a bloodless protest
to awaken the heart
of the oppressor
offered
at the crossing of
Phanh Dinh Phung
& Le Van Duyet
doused in gasoline &
immolated by 4-meter
flames the orange-robed
arhat folded in
the stillness
of full lotus
his body withering
his crown blackening
his flesh charring
his corpse collapsing
his heart refusing to burn
his heart refusing to burn
his heart refusing to burn
*
the aging antiquities dealer
drops the value on his idol
of the Nataraja after twenty
years, sold to the lowest
bidder for 2.4 million
insuring the collector’s
early retirement – Chola bronze
buried deep within a well
bears the scars of rope
used to lower the god
down a tunnel to safety
evading all problems
of patrimony, in other
incarnations Shiva as
lingam, father of yoga
balanced in ananda tandava
one leg raised in cosmic dance
the other stamping illusion
*
the sledge-hammered crown
of Akshobya stolen
from Shentong Monastery’s
Four Gate Pagoda,
his throat slit with saw
(if you meet the Buddha
on the path, kill him)
bought on the black market
by devotees, donated to
the head of the Dharma Drum
order Master Sheng Yen
sees past the icon, a non-
attachment to form:
animal skin stretched over
hollow shell, a head
broken away from its body
remembering how the holy
prince was once pictured
in ancient art –
by his footprint alone
the grounding of
the transcendent
where the Buddha touched
earth, villages he visited
the dharma flowering to
distant places Sheng Yen
retraces the path, taking
the Buddha back to his origins
from a plane to a bus
escorted from Beijing
to Shandong Province
a ceremony that makes
headlines on both sides
of the Taiwan Strait
