Daily Schedule at a Thai Forest Temple
1. Morning Chant
Explosions shake this valley awake.
At first I think there’s an airfield nearby,
every few minutes jet engines
blow out my goddamn eardrums,
they follow me from the treetops
and then I see them clinging to bark,
the giant cicadas.
They start as a soft hum in the fog
then swell to drown out all other voices,
a swarm of overheating buzzsaws
when you bend down low to the mud
you can hear echo out
the groundholes of snakes and crabs.
2. One meal daily before noon
I’m addicted to the peace I can’t find,
silent solitude brushes my eyes closed
but I need a splash in the face every now and then
the same way
a tree needs both sunshine and rain.
I’m homesick for the home I never had,
if I could gain any power it would be to disappear,
not to be gone but to be held
in that open embrace,
that empty space between and behind
the things that are seen.
I want to be so small that I am formless
enough to find rest within
the recesses of snake tunnels
and I want to be so drunk with unconditional love
that I’m carried across the threshold
of every crab’s home all at once.
3. Afternoon meditation
I rise from my cushion,
called to the courtyard by the ringing
of dogs fighting to the death.
In the grass a cat I feed sometimes
stands with her kittens clawing and hissing
to hold off a pack of stray dogs.
When a dog nips a kitten
I feel my hand grip a long umbrella,
I run into the grass yelling,
swinging wild overhead,
the heavy umbrella top snaps off
skidding and clacking across the courtyard,
the dogs scatter into hiding for now,
and I’m left holding a broken handle.
How is it possible
that the kitten’s white fur
has not a single blemish
but lies motionless in the grass?
How do the fire ants know
in only a matter of minutes
that it’s time to parade
across four limbs and a tail
to welcome their new guest
into their home
after a long journey?
How does the mother sit still,
watching so closely without a sound,
knowing better than to try
taking her child back?
4. Evening Chant
In the gathering embrace of night
I find a cicada carcass
silent in the fog at the base of its tree.
I lay this hard black body
over the flesh of my palm
for just a few seconds
and settle onto my blanket
draped over hollow ground
to sleep.
Lionel A. Newman is a Thai-American poet, former Buddhist monk, and PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Groningen. Originally from Chicago and recently returning from a decade in the Netherlands, he has performed his poetry at various live Dutch events including the Poets in the Prinsentuin festival and touring with Random Collision Dance Company performing improvised poetry. Lionel is emerging as a publishing poet with work appearing in Hot Pot Magazine. He is a member of the Amsterdam-based Strange Birds writers’ collective and the Groningen Poetry Stanza.
The Marbled Sigh 