While in Chiang Mai, we visited the Buddhist temple where my family worshipped. We brought food and an offering of money to the monk, and in return asked for the blessing we so needed. “Pour the water,” the monk said, and as we poured, he chanted, the words running with the water. I recognized words and phrases and our family name: Koslaphirom. “America,” he said. The words flowed and flowed until the water ran out. He stopped and bowed. We thanked him, then stepped out into the physical world again.
Blessings tumbled down on us
as water filled a bowl,
the monk chanting words,
rhythm of flowing water.
Outside, cars sped by,
people hung laundry over
balcony railings.
Cats walked languidly
across the courtyard and
fish darted about in their
watery kingdom – an urn
on the stone steps.
Inside the temple, the
blessings flowed onto
my pink-cheeked son, plump
with young blood, and
my mother, cancer cells
coursing through her veins.
And blessing reached across town,
to where my father was wheezing
in his hotel bed, hooked up
to an oxygen tank, tethered
still to our world.
Blessings poured over memory –
of Grandfather, long gone,
though we reached for him.
Grandmother, too, and my
oldest aunty, and others I
have never known. Blessings
flowed, chant like, waking
us with a splash of water
and the presence of
each other, everywhere.
Amphibious 