Being and Time

To see the lotus pond behind a pinewood shrine,
the old man climbs to the top of mountains.
He points to that void in front of him.
"Are those lotuses or people? Or these are
the people, those lotuses" Pointing to this void
beside him. It has passed the lotus season,
which he spent with his dying wife. Half blind,
the wind strings the creeks into one clink
of a jade ring. A mallet making the bronze
bell tremble. The monks chant. The youngest
one, dozing most of his morning, lifts his
eyelids: that pond full of startled egrets, flitting.