The monk meditates

Arja Salafranca

The monk meditates,
waits, eyes downcast,
he is small beside the huge,
benevolent Buddha.
The altar is littered with offerings and
portions of rice.
The monk waits,
closed in on himself,
his orange robes sweaty.
He does not notice the camera
or the sun hitting
the statue,
he does not see the streak
of the flash
as he sits.
A young monk,
he watches, in his mind,
the departing images of his
mother and brothers,
as they walked away into the
mist earlier that day.
The monk has been offered
up to someone else’s dreams.
He sits obediently waiting.
The worshippers crowd in,
bringing flowers, more offerings;
praying, bartering for
better lives.

The monk sits,
expressionless, empty,
He has just seen a vision of
what will be.
He remains seated,
eyes downcast, hands protectively
sheltering his belly
while Buddha looks on.

II

In the distance the mother
and her children reach their home.
She stares at the darkened
purple mountains, the trail they have
walked. The monastery is far away, hidden.
The trail crumbles in the
wind. The children are hungry:
she gets the fire going, puts food and
water in a pot. Her husband calls.
As the shadows lengthen,
the night eats the earth,
silence squeezes the mountain village,
and smoke drifts away.
Fires smoulder, die, re-ignite,
animals call in the distance,
children snore lightly,
and a sweaty, salty odour mixes with the air.
The pot, big and blackened,
swings slightly over the ash-filled pit.
The mother makes out shapes in the
ink-black darkness, her rough hands tired as
she tries to remember what has
been forgotten.

Previously published in Isis X (Botsotso Publishing).

LitNet: 20 December 2005

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