Final Signs

Final Signs

This morning

a large wind-working

bird of calm appeared,

turning and turning

in the sky I saw Everest.

The man at the blue

street drug store calmly repeated

his instructions against the traffic,

echoing details about the times

and frequencies 

for ingesting his colorful molecules.

As my intestines labored,

Supriya arrived at the penthouse door,

dressed in her mother’s clothes

and carrying two final kindnesses:

3 copper plates that whisper like birds

and a 10-meter swath of falling flowers.

Last night, the devil became

a calm and patient taxi driver

with a clear English accent. Steering us

deeper up the Patanian arteries

to our temporary heart.

The buddha-square on his dash board

should have reassured me from the start,

but taxi drivers are often the mythic beasts

placed in every conversation to embody

crime, greed and the abuse of innocence--

as though they are politicians within our midsts.

Just now, as we tilted through monsoon clouds

for a last glimpse of Patan,

a rainbow bounced off

the plane’s wing, an echo saying

something is complete while incomplete.

by jerry gordon
Kathmandu, Nepal

8.24.2013