Guru
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As the door closes, a jingle
of bells -- raining, cold,
the shop is warm but not crowded.
She looks out the display window
onto the narrow,
busy street -- small cars,
pedestrians, a woman with
a child on the

back of her
bike navigates the
flow...

She sees this,
amazed, the so determined look
of the young mother,
an envelope of
protection from somewhere. Thoughts cross
her mind this way -- cars, traffic, noise --
which she can't quite get
hold of...

The berries of the mountain ash
are almost too big
for the tiny winter wrens. He
stops, amazed, counts seven or more
all on the same tree;
they show no fear;
ecstatic with fall, they are gone.
The limbs of the bare

tree shiver,
his camera, covered
with wet snow...

She sees this
as the book slowly opens upon
a face, an image

of a man,
seated, eyes closed, with

a triangulated silence,
a projected calm,
the sound of words she repeats by
heart -- mantra, yantra, tantra, like
fingers ticking off
overtones on a
little drum. The face horrifies her,
yet fills the shop with

an intense
aura of longing.
"Go away!" she closes the book,

("go away "...)

Sitting, hands folded,
they have been there all morning long,
s i t t i n g, snap goes the stick,  s i t t i n g.
a faint temple bell
rings; it is over...

"Thought," she
thinks, ("Thought "....)

The blackbird begins his practice
once day equals night,
snow mixed with mist, just barely light,
he tests the silence with a few
notes, listening, then
glides swiftly down the
mountain, low, wings closed, just above
the surface of the

ice --
wings opening on

his look-
out rock, a fluent flourish of
chirping metallic figures and

he is
motionless.

(She thought,
perhaps she should get... a

cushion;
she does have a tendency to

fall

asleep.)
But the rose quartz -- little candies

from the tummy of
the Earth, she thinks, looking down at
the face again -- "Meditation,
that is what they say,
in meditation,"

"Yes..."
("thought " ...)

He stops, abruptly, ramming in-
to a patch of hard,
crusted snow, then sits back and lets
go, traversing swiftly, resting
his uphill ski, "there,
perfect"...leaps out on his right foot,
then left, finding the rhythm, breath,
down the mountain, fast.....

"Sandal-
wood is best," she thinks and closes

the book --
outside, rain, "Freedom, from the...?"

...very fast,
"Too fast," he thinks, as the snow turns
to slush.....She opens her eyes - turns, and

clicks the door
shut on the image.
With a muted tinkling, she thinks,

"thought..." "Freedom, from..."

a faint
jingling of...

(bells.....)

(Aubou du Monde, Bookshop,
De Singel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)