Temple Blues

Unity only comes through the service entrance
As time's spiral holds only what's made from love.
The rest falls away, still whole
As the king hermit is still
At the top of the tower
Waiting for it to fall.

The seeker must face again the shadow
And surrender another time to the coil of life
In the scholar's studio
Painting heathen grief,
Preparing the best clouds
For buddha dignitaries.

In the mandala there are as many teacher demons
Interstitially as it will hold and still have carpets 

For praying. They blow their vital breath 

Into a snake until the shadow is cast off,
Revealed as a human face
And no longer needed in the play.

That was the breath that brought everyone
From miles away to wave, having become something more
At least for the celebration, while the roads
Are temporarily barricaded 
Zacetecas style, the empanadas
International now after all

Though no one knows that but the afflicted,
On clouds, inside a moment when history yields

To the way they feel now,
What emerged when it ended.
The feeling lingers in the stragglers here,
Still alive in a new day.