Tibetan Prayer Flags
The quiet cloths quickly flutter
across the small patio, they hang,
they wrap about the simple
string as prayer beads around a wrist.
Threads come down, thoughts,
weather tears cheap fabric apart.
Colors wane like a mantra from my lips—
I cannot read the language.
The ten flags dance like loose
baby teeth, a child cries for her mother,
she’s her Buddha, her Bodhisattva,
a planet, all she knows, wants.
Bought in Maine, its rocky coast far from the mountains
of Tibet where the next Dalai Lama plays
with a wooden toy, her dark eyes knowing,
her hair blows in a breeze, a flag of today.
Their shadow on concrete marks
the time of day, always now.
Impermanence strikes me, winter hasn’t
lasted.
About
Sarah Lilius is the author of four chapbooks, including GIRL (dancing girl press, 2017), and Thirsty Bones (Blood Pudding Press, 2017). Her work can be found in the Denver Quarterly, Court Green, BlazeVOX, Bluestem, Tinderbox, Stirring, Luna Luna Magazine, Entropy, and Flapperhouse. She lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and two sons.
Read more from her:
Taxidermy, in Crack the Spine
The Garden Memory, in Blue Lake Review
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