BUDDHA & The BLUE HORSES


after a late night lecture at the Buddhist Church

the audience files out some leisurely

some leave in a panic to relieve baby-sitters

'its double pay after midnight

damn Tibetans they have no sense of time

someone else adds a boisterous former New Yorker

others just keep chatting away & giving out hugs

their eyes all aglow just another little satori they whisper

to their pals from LA & San Francisco
some spaced-out chatting away to anyone or no one at all
the woman I came with says she has to leave

all this hugging drives me crazy

what a bunch of back-stabbing phonies she confides to me

as we leave the gold painted shrine-room

& begin searching for our shoes

she disappears in the meandering stream of bodies

someone shouts ' its a fucking blizzard out there'

& the snow is piling up fast '

seeing the snow drifting covering their cars

some sigh & moan some wonder if we'll ever get home

an angry Buddhist shakes his fist at wind-tossed snowflakes

I bundle up in scarf gloves & hood & head up the street

having no car I cannot share their concerns

so I begin my trek on foot

dragging myself through waist-high snow-drifts

only the odd car passes me

I keep turning away from the wind as I lose my breath

suddenly the air is still & the clouds part as if on cue

revealing such a wondrous boldly glowing moon

& I begin crossing the sparkling fields of snow

in waves of dripping moonlight

at 3am on the Halifax Commons

& for a moment the internal babble

has shut down I climb onto one of the bleachers

along the side of the invisible ball-park

brushing a dusting of snow away I take my seat

reach into the inside pocket

of my brown weather worn

leather jacket take out

a pack of cigarettes fish for matches

light up gently inhaling exhaling

slowly watching the soft small cloud of smoke

swirling around floating away breaking apart

disappearing into the cold night air

discovering the power of silence

hearing the murmuring of the engines

which are at the heart of the universe

in its perpetual slowly turning cogs & springs

turning wheels within wheels perpetually moving

while blue horses prance about barely disturbing

the glittering white snow-

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