A tiny Buddha sits in perfect marble stillness

Upon the perfect white altar

In the neat temple,

While in swarming loom of glistening, green jungle

Whirr the singing insects, hungry

For skin, for flesh.

 

Just beyond temple windows, a sheet of glass away,

Surges the fecund forest, moody

With musty dark.

A fevered scrum of branches scratch against the glass;

Within smiles the cool Buddha,

Sweetly calm.

 

And through the mild, sunlit interior of temple air

A field of worshippers’ heads sways

In a breeze of prayer,

Wishful for silence,

for jungle alike.