Listening to stories of mendicants traveling from place to place with nothing but a begging bowl, I envy the bowl. The bowl has better perfected detachment, indifferent to whether it might be filled with water or food or dust. I am not there yet. I envy the tree that gave shade, the cobra that levered its flaps like a leathered umbrella opened against the rain. At twilight, as the sun makes its exit over the hills, I envy the wider sash of indigo eclipsing the gold. When night settles over the fields and the last late truck bearing its cargo of lumber or stone crosses the bridge, I envy the errant wind that sends a fig or chestnut tumbling to the ground. I envy the riddle about the sea and the sleeping mat rolled up in the room, for the sureness of what they know of transformation. I envy the lemon tree that knows to grow quiet beside the shed, its white buds smaller and more luminous than the blisters on the back of a heel chafed by the edge of a shoe. And the bird in its branches, I envy that bird though I do not know its name before it arrives— the one whose beak and cry will be the first to pierce the silence of dawn.
[LAG-two-sources date=”01 10 2013″ url1=”http://morningporch.com/2013/01/159123082/” title1=”Morning Porch” url2=”http://yeosi.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/small-stone-197/” title2=”small stone (197)”]