Homage to Avalokiteshvara

 

The hailseeds are yours, the tiny bouncing nuggets

whitening March fields, the seeds of your compassion;

 

the drifting snowflakes, those frail associations

of melting stars and hexagons, the thousand million worlds

 

whose cries you hear, whose sorrows you gaze down on

 

O jewel in the lotus

O jewel in the lotus.

 

The Shetland ponies, cream and brown, (no taller than sheep), shelter by the wall

whose every odd-shaped stone was lifted, checked, re-shaped,

placed, re-placed and balanced by your tireless, seeing hands.

 

The light on the hills is yours, the dove-breast shimmer of distance;

 

yours is the dusk, the slow withdrawing

of colour from the fields as you unfold your darkness

 

O jewel in the lotus

O jewel in the lotus.

 

An owl has borrowed your beautiful voice

whose touch on our lives is softer than owl-feather.

 

The moon goes riding in your pearly halo;

near clouds and far clouds scud by in two directions

or paint themselves motionless while your stars whizz past like fishes.

 

You mend the rough path with your fingers of moonlight

 

stroke a sudden horse’s nose, white in the blackness

 

lead us to the river, where through the swaying treetops

 

you spell your mantra on the dark water

 

O jewel in the lotus

O jewel in the lotus.

 

Clair Mullineaux