Present Buddha sitting in a glade for several seconds, then gone to perch like a ladybird on a wet leaf. An eyedrop rolling down the chasm of the upturned leaf, a pinball in the fern’s erratic machine. Watching loneliness float away like a trail of smoke in the glade. Buddha was just there. The scent of sugarcane burning through the night. The manic energy of that desire in the dark. Candles of skin. Miniature whirlpools and short, sharp cracks. The earth rolling over. Poisonous berries growing from sunset-coloured fungi. Entropy, the waterfall’s big wheel.
Future Buddha on a plain immense, a turtle mountain, scanning the horizon for gold, or a rainbow. Fingers playing with tiny wheels. Setting soft cogs in motion. Observe the effects: a day comes rushing like a myth, backwards, from the mouth of Buddha, a little sparrow. That universal whistle blowing through space, through your eyes. I watch and say nothing, for my heart is too busy telling me, with each trembling thump, just how constant is that friend called time, and how determined its inevitable foes. Sand falls from the sky in diamonds.
