Know first the dimensions:
60 inches in length, 48 inches high
divided by mullions into 12 panes
Locked, the window does not allow
for sound;
Open, for bird calls, breezes, distant sirens
Below the window sits a white squat
porcelain Buddha
roughly nine inches in height,
though in viewing
its height seems indeterminate
Expression: bemused
The Buddha resides on a mirror,
the shining surface of a white wooden chest
with two doors, each ornamented by four circles
The mirror reflects everything around
and everything beyond the Buddha
Not ten feet from the chest on a white square ottoman
sits a fantasy of myself
What attracts me is not the Buddha or the image
of myself but the garden outside the window
Every shade of green is there, every shape of leaf,
every color of vine, trunk, fruit and blossom,
every mystery inside each pod, stamen, bean and bud,
every mix of light and pale
The window as a whole, each individual pane,
makes for an image of Everything
Today, at least for this instant, Everything is there
The puzzle for the Buddha and myself is what to call
the Everything, the inevitable question of “What is it?”
beyond the Nowhere
And so I and the Buddha sit, as does squirrel, owl, doe,
stag, perplexed child, in uncounted seconds of silence,
frozen, stymied, forlorn, behind immutable barriers
of the invisible, waiting, for a word, a name, an inkling,
a signal, a sign, anything of the supernatural from beyond
this window, this sheet of glass