Know first the dimensions:

 

60 inches in length, 48 inches high

divided by a mullion into 16 panes

 

Closed, the window does not allow

for sound

 

Below the window sits

a white squat porcelain buddha

approximately nine inches in height,

though in viewing

its height seems indeterminate

Expression:  bemused

 

The buddha resides on a mirror

atop a shining white wooden chest

with two doors ornamented by four circles

 

The mirror reflects everything around

and everything beyond the buddha

 

Not ten feet from the chest

seated on a white square ottoman

sits a man I call myself

 

What concerns us is not the buddha or the man

but the garden on the other side of the window

 

Every shade of green is there, every shape of leaf,

every color of vine, trunk and fruit,

every mix of light and pale

 

 

 

The window as a whole, each individual pane,

makes for an image of everything

Today, at least at this moment,

everything is there

 

A puzzle for the buddha and the man

is what to call the everything

 

And so they sit, as does the squirrel,

owl, doe, stag and perplexed child

in uncertain moments of silence,

frozen, stymied, forlorn,

as behind immutable barriers of glass,

waiting,

for a word, a sound, a name,

something, anything

 

 

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