Sonam Chhoki

Lightness of Being

A beam plays on the yew branches that bow with ruby beads.

I cannot unfasten the catch on the old wooden gate, where we often stopped to read the plaque to a fallen hero. It is almost as if I shouldn't be here and yet I must, I must …

I fiddle and rattle and all the while the radiance spreads over the trimmed hedges, between the spindly stems of aged shrubs over the freshly-cut grass to the lichen-covered stone wall.

Into the black earth, into its cimmerian depth I sink in a pale shaft.

How light it is, how light!

moonless night –
the Big Dipper scoops
all the black