Small Things
Pay attention to a crumb fallen from the altar, stuck to the janitor's boot-sole at Our Lady of Guadalupe in East LA. It is the body of God. Pay attention to this breath sinking to your belly, rising to your forehead, dissolving into starlight. A deer trail circling back to itself in the greenbelt between public housing projects. The moon in daylight not quite full floating among russet leaves. Nothing is finished. That doesn’t matter. Presence is to disappear. Three unharvested tomatoes glowing hollow as lanterns. A spider flinging its silken path homeward from an old garden buddha to the withered rose. The last evening light fondling small things like the hand of the dying, not with regret but inextinguishable gratitude. Zen garden, Kyoto