Rosary

“Everything changes, nothing remains without change.”
—Gautama Buddha

All day I moved from task to task— washing and dressing, raising the shades, putting away clean dishes and utensils from last night as we waited for our youngest daughter to eat her bread and cheese and jam. We piled into the car and drove to church; there too it took some work to listen and tune in to the service, to homilies of being lost and found, the shuffle of collection baskets making their rounds. The wheel of standing-sitting-kneeling, attended by hymns and prayer. After church, we stopped for coffee and sandwiches, the Sunday paper; then went to the Asian grocery for rice (we like the “Milagrosa” brand), sweet bread and tea, mustard greens, and bitter melon. I bought three tiny good luck charms for the lunar new year: fingerling gourd with a buddha hidden in its hem, small brass urn, three-tiered pagoda. At noon, the streets were still surprisingly empty, not even harboring their usual noise. When the wind moved, bands of blue moved east and closed just before the sun could enter them. Everything grew still. When the wind died, it was completely quiet for fifteen seconds. I thought I saw a thousand-armed goddess step through the clouds; just one slight gesture of her hand multiplied in the air and prismed. A truck rumbled past. A siren blared. All around, colors fractured and glowed like pieces of stained glass.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.16.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.