Mandalay Hills

Mandalay Hills
I return to the big pagoda
At the top of the Mandalay Hills
Having forgotten everything about it
Until the jeep going up the steep incline
Leans sharply into the first hairpin turn
And I am tilting over
Onto my right side
Where I come to rest
Against the soft and welcome shoulder
of memory.
We were here before.
I can see the footprints we left.
I remember our negotiations
At the vendors’ stalls,
The wonder we shared
As we viewed the distant river,
The town we visited
Where we rode in the ox-cart
And borrowed a guitar
And you sang
So beautifully and bravely
Outside the ruins
Near the hospice
Next to the temple
Where a family is leading their blind grandfather
Around the circumference of by hand
And a group of young men and women eating together
On the temple floor
Invite me to join them
People silently seated in front of statues of the Buddha
Praying, or at least reverential,
While a soldier in uniform
Regards the foreigner engaged with his laptop
With suspicion
As incense is lit
And bells ring
And the spell is broken
By the man pushing the dry mop
Smelling of ammonia
And I shake my head in wonder
Brought back to self-awareness and green,
To monks and the mystery of consciousness
To languages I do not understand
And refracting mirrors embedded in jade
The wonder of memory
The gifts delivered by wise men
Of awe, of gratitude, and love
Here, in the Mandalay Hills.