Grace
       

Beneath a sapling cypress, Buddha floats
in lotus position above a crushed red brick sea.
Each thumb to each index finger draws your eyes
to empty space. American competitors
garden gnome and lawn jockey pose boisterously
with fairy-tale photogenics, but this slab of soapstone
has his eyes closed to you. He smiles
as if perpetually boarding an outbound
while a chainsaw clears hemlocks in the nearby reservoir
and a backhoe breaks rocks for a new foundation.
He does not flinch at the blue-headed horsefly
trying to bite his neck.

Copyright © 2009 Jason Tandon All rights reserved
from Give Over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission