grains of rice

Clean clear cold foggy dawn.

5 a.m. is shawl shadowed on a blank deserted street.

You walk in a glimmer of silence.

Smell cooking smoke. Yellow fire flames on a corner. The woman from last year.

She has a long partial memory.

Her wok oil bubbles in cast iron bowl above forested wood, glimmering bright yellow caresses orange.

Heat. Ritual of fire is repeated from mountainous Phongsali in the north to the south.

Fire & wood.

Before sunlight beams orange silent monks walk single file.

They greet worshipers offering grains of rice.

Dreamlike apparitions follow daily step by step along a path whispering with their eyes seeing fire.

No attachment in this transitory visual blessing.