Prayer - Rome

We’re the cloud people

Getting by on less

Sleeping under thatch

Not talking much

Writing so much less

A few poems perhaps

We let go of the world

Working the higher slopes

Out of touch with the times

But not the seasons

Having none of your doubts

And none of your reasons

And it comes down to this:

We traded flatland dust

For mountain mist

To be distant

Insignificant

And you know we’re there

Beyond your city walls

Where you see lone columns of smoke

After the snowfalls

Don’t think we’ve been pushed

From their hearts and minds

Though sage kings are gone

And left deserted shrines

We live on unseen

In the mountain fires

Try not to be alike

With your beads so new

Crowded mountains won’t do

And though your tongues are full

And there are words to speak

None of them are real

None of them will heal

Ten thousand things

All in this breath

Grasping hold of emptiness

Grasping hold of emptiness