The Place Where Karma Originated
The sign outside the monastery reads:
“Near this spot, karma
first entered the world.” -
beside it, a small slot in a wooden box
painted white, with “DONATIONS”
in red letters scrawled across the top.
The cobbled track between the stalls
& shops is both narrow & steep, a maze of
potholes & ruts, karma’s answer to ‘tourist traps’ -
a holy obstacle course for the pressed & dressed
& impeccably plain, coming & going outside
the money exchange, where dogs & beggars
compete with American Express in 15 languages,
& lunch is a handful of flies & stones
next to an old woman working her fan,
frowning over a brazier whose coals are eyes.
When they’ve discovered I’ve been to the edge,
to the village where karma originated,
they’ll want to know what it’s like,
so I’ll tell them: it’s the coldest, darkest place
I’ve ever seen, full of the meanest people
I’ve ever met, grasping for change.
Like all those other places where karma originated.
A memory of footprints, every trace of hand or hair,
at every corner a familiar smell, a fall from grace,
every beggar an answer, meting out an earned revenge.
All places are recognizable in time.
Outside the place where karma originated,
I ask someone if they’ll take my picture as a kind of
souvenir, something to see, evidence I was here, or
there, or anywhere. They hold my camera upside-down
as if to dare the logic from its cage.
No smile. No cheese.
The shutter shudders, the light burns in
& the smallest part of me escapes into the prison
through which we all must pass in order to be free.
Copyright © Billy Marshall Stoneking | Year Posted 2014
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