Earthquake at the Buddhist Temple
Together, we page through hard green books of verse
harvested from every worthy faith in the basement
library of the non-sectarian church my father attended
these last few years. Well-meaning, my mother,
Catholic, suggests the Our Father, but ex-wives
don’t get that final say, only daughters do, however
negligent they were. I say, I don’t want any Jesus
at this funeral. It’s not about Jesus, she barks
back. I guess I don’t want any God then, either.
Back home, I visit for the first time a storefront temple
in my neighborhood. I thought He’d be here, waiting,
but He’s not. Between blue walls hung with tapestries,
bell tones braiding the smell of just-split sheetrock
with nag champa’s earthy smoke, our teacher helps us
meditate on Tara, mother of compassion. Shameless
opportunist of the heart, I listen for a bit of wisdom
I can wrap around my shapeless grief like a broadside
horoscope, a paper fortune. I doubt I’ll be forgiven.
When the first shock rolls through our unsilent city
I know what we’re all thinking: dumptruck, pothole,
until it surrounds us, shaking the temple without fury
or violence, like a doll’s house rolled over concrete
in the bed of a little red wagon, summoning that breath-
held moment, as when, just before falling, everything
stops, the bicycle tilted at an impossible angle, or
the tension between foot and stair just about to break,
the inevitable ground before us not yet contended with.
Clare Marie Myers holds an MA in Poetry and is slowly wending her way through an MFA in Fiction, both from San Francisco State University. In 2007, she was awarded SFSU's William Dickey Fellowship in Poetry. Her work has recently appeared in ZYZZYVA. (cmmyers@gmail.com)