Kundalini Splendor

On the Longing for Robes

Ah, these monks and their robes,
when will I have done with them.

Always they are there,
dream images floating
at the corner of the eye,
the ghost on the stair which vanishes
as you turn.

One summer in Kansas, I followed
a wine red robe down a busy street,
heat hovering over the asphalt
like souls of the dead ascending.
He pondered the text in his hand,
and I stared at him in amazement--
where had he come from?
Who had set him down,
unlikely visitor
in this out of the way place?

And once, in Boulder,
as we together intoned the full moon chant
(feeling all naked in our robeless state)
they arrived, the invisibles
softly rustling in,
clad in dark gray and maroon,
delicate presences
sensed, not seen,
as they mingled among us softly
side by side
and the room filled
with the scent of love.

I knew they were there,
and why they had come.
We had called them down
with our ancient rite.
We had done this together, all of us,
countless times before
and now were joined again
to salute the turning worlds
and the swollen yellow moon
pregnant once more
with the season yet to come.

copyright, Dorothy Walters