Sunday, April 22, 2007

Plastic Altars and Roses

I put together a small altar of my room. It consists of half of a milk crate, a plastic bowel filled with dirt and a Turkish incense stick, and a used water bottle half filled with water and a cutting of a flower.

My Iraqi maid is puzzled by my little set-up, but has taken to cutting fresh flowers for the water bottle. I came back from a run to the airport this morning to find a handful of white, baby roses protruding from the bottle. I smiled.

Japanese Death Poem:

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going-
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.

- Kozan Ichikyo
Zen Monk
1360

1 comment:

Mark M. Hancock said...

Always appreciate small things done for unselfish reasons. They have the greatest value.