- The brilliant lines and
- shapes take form,
- grain by bright grain
- as orange and burgundy
- robes border the table.
- Golden hands infinitely
- precise and certain
- put down tiny trails
- the colors of cardinals,
- jays and cockatoos.
- The last grain placed,
- they step back, crown
- themselves and begin to
- sing strange harmonies,
- chords made not in concert
- but from each singer's
- body. The sound and
- the form draw us in
- to disappear into beauty,
- into the perfection
- of what fills our eyes and
- ears, into joy that humans
- can do such things.
- The sound stops.
- One bald monk steps to
- the mandala and swiftly,
- calmly claws perfection
- into chaos and it is gone,
- dumped into a jar and
- marched to the sea by a
- chain of laughing monks.
- .
- One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
