Another Road

The Path
at He Nan Temple
Afaa Michael Weaver

Without my umbrella I forget the rain, welcome
each drop to forget me. The stones take more time
to know, their separate grooves and slopes,
different slanting into the light, one face for the moon,
one face for the clouds. In the wetness I hear
honeysuckles tipping over at the edges, a frog
jumping to reach the higher grass, lost somehow.
At the end I put my hand out to touch what you left
for me the last time I came searching, alone.

With the umbrella I stumble into the solitary
way water soaks the skin in thunder,
listening for the sound of the eagles circling
above or the lost piglets of wild boards or whatever
can be caught in the talons. My hands are
not free, too busy with trying to keep the cover
on my head. The stones speak another meditation,
a kind of counting to music. Touch us, they say,
and a thousand stone paths will appear.

Once in the night when it was dry, when the rain
stopped its pretty lisping, wetting the air,
I walked this path to the dream of where we live.