toward mount kailash

XVII.

“yes, even sky became a garden.

The clouds banked west like Shiva’s mountain.”

 Deborah Digges: “THE GARDENS OFFERED IN PLACE OF MY MOTHER’S DYING—"

friends: would you take me 
from this hospital

of his birth to hospital 
of his tincture?  north

and then north?  and more north?

and yet more north?

to a commodious 

parking lot?

i'll feel in every pot-hole

and every frost heave a penance, 

and every red and go.

i'll hear every soundless hurry,

hurry, hurry, hurry to me.

it is windy.

it is cold.

i will loose

my sandal straps.

even as it seems a mile

and another mile,

down these halls and walls i'll know

better than my own

mother—

i'll say yes to the flecked blue 
mucosed carpet next to my nose, i'll 

bruise the high wooden railing,

whose curves and lefts then rights

then left again turns get solidly to his light.
friends: meet me at the end of it all.

we'll 

still

be 

alive.