Tibetan Monks Chanting

I wanted, of course, to understand
but it’s a sound -- not a word.
It was not about my I, or their I, or our I.
It was not about understanding,
but that’s all the mind knows
so it kept trying.
It tried looking
at their quiet masculine bodies
in the red and gold robes,
at their steady expressionless faces
under the large crown hats
and still it could not know,
so it returned to the sound
that was deep and strong and male
like wood oak and stone and steel
altered and sent to a purpose beyond itself,
that kept going and going, past sadness and joy,
beyond anything Mozart would have recognized
and I thought about the long stretches when
I had been without the body of a woman to lay with
and how it had hurt and
I wondered if they ached too
or if they were beyond even that
and what was there
and I wanted to say, “No, wait!
as I will when I have to go there.
So I left and went out into the summer evening.
A young boy was playing on his skateboard
under a deep blue U.S. Bank sign.
He was only using one foot.