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.
