The Singing Bowl

So come my friends, be not afraid
we are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made
In love we disappear.
Leonard Cohen

I.

A bronze singing bowl my daughter
Brought me from Nepal. Diameter
Of a woman dilated to deliver.
I was thinking about pushing today,
I never told her how childbirth felt.

At 6:00 AM I read about Chinese prostitutes,
Children stolen, bound feet, dead by twenty.
Twenty was old then at Gold Mountain City.
By nine I had cried. By ten who knows
What realization will occur. Have faith

The birds would be the first to tell me
If they had need for words. Light on the bowl.
Light in my daughter’s scarred heart.
She carries beauty like a courtesan.
I sat at Eldorado coffee shop, admired her


Apron tied under the head of my grandchild.
Meant for beauty and to serve love. Why not?
Women do not run the world, and yet
I’m ready for the wars to ends. Circles
Of dissidents and prophets. “Use your words,”

a mother tells a tantrum child. “Go to your room!”
an old woman says to Arafat, Sharon.
This baby coming, a clangor for a singing bowl.
My daughter with her pierced nose,
Her belly gone awry with love.


II.

She got me a singing bowl and a bracelet that said,
OM MANE PADME HUM. But was it before or after
the accident Thanksgiving Day? I’m thinking before,
since after she was in shock and had to split Nepal
so I don’t think she was in a shopping frame of mind
this young woman who loved shopping and loved me
and was able to love on a planetary scale because
they were just coming back from a trek and riding
on top of the bus, there was no room inside, when
something invisible, for it was dusk and you know how
dusk messes with the eyes especially in Nepal with Buddha
eyes on everything, so nobody could see or can figure out
what hand of fate came and struck her friend in the face
splitting it and breaking her arm, her leg, five teeth, a hand
of God, a branch, a wire, She fell onto my daughter, maybe
six inches lower, sitting right on the roof and not her backpack,
and they kept her out of shock and got her to Pokara
where the hospital was rank and the doctor reluctant.
She lived, though her right arm is useless.
She’s a photographer. The flight home cost more than my house.

The police wanted to hang the bus driver. The girls
wouldn’t give his name. Corina came back early
though already too late, pierced her nose in LA
while visiting her friend in the hospital. Brought
me gifts, a bowl that holds singing and begging
and thanking, somebody else’s daughter,
hammered by hand, by an unknown hand
in Katmandu, Nepal or maybe Pokara.


III.

Gazing down at herself, becoming unbecoming
While cells multiply, brain, testicles or more.
Inside her fertile Wonder Womb
Navel to nascent navel calling, she alters.

Wild cells organize, brain, spinal cord, ovaries or more.
From lightning rod sex and mountain air, double rainbow.
Navel to nascent navel calling, she’s an altar.
In the cleaning a girl her mother won’t let go woman.

From the lightning rod of sex and Santa Barbara air.
The final countdown, everybody shifts, the family hedges.
In the clearing a girl her mother can’t let go woman,
tight as they are, another being comes between.

The final countdown, everybody edgy, the family shifts
We do and do not mind. Her lover paints.
Tight as they are, another being comes before the wedding.
She qualifies for MedicAid. He paints million dollar houses.

We do and do not mind. Her lover paints
This vast beauty, head down to face its maker.
She qualifies for MedicAid. He paints on canvas.
She serves coffee for eight bucks an hour including tips.

This vast beauty, head down to face its maker.
Who made this child, man and ground, woman and rain?
She serves coffee for eight bucks an hour.
A Muslim woman prays in Arabic for easy passage.

Who made this child, double rainbow?
Holding her belly, uncovered at the market
a Muslim woman prays in Arabic for easy passage
kisses her belly with her permission.

Holding her belly, revealed and marked,
inside this Wonder Womb, fertile
kisses. Her belly grows with her permission.
She gazes at herself becoming becoming.