This place makes me cry—

not its beauty, but because I recognize—

this calm.

“Come in,” says the sweetest voice.

In an instant,

the serpent meanders these walls.

Dormant tesserae awaken in a hiss—

reverence.

Banished by the king

when embodiment lost meaning.

Now, as if a return,

I was this—before everything.

Saffron-robed young monks

face the golden one.

The serpent slipstreams the weave

of their chant

with sambac and oil lamps,

invoking nāda

through the dimly lit temple—

snapping the elastic of time

into this evening tessellation

with floating incense, 

one that begins to dissolve

the hollows.