Walking Meditation
In the half-lit dawn, tense with the undone,
I walk my body like the family dog
Three times around the hospital parking lot
Chanting beneath my breath in the early sun.
Roosters compete with the ventilators' hum,
Cool breezes, motorcycles, a new fleet
Of color-coded nurses, while around me
Old women sweep my curling path with brooms.
In the corner, ignoring us, his back turned,
A man in uniform lights joss sticks, feeds
The spirit house with its unlit Christmas lights, saan phraphuum
Uneaten fruit. As he walks back to the ER
A bulbul sings. Just then, for a moment
I am filled with the lostness of being anywhere.
From: Mosaic Orpheus, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009.