Tao of Taos
Ellaraine Lockie
Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse 2010 (view all the winners)
Third Prize
Dedicated to Wired? Coffee Cyber Cafe
in Taos, New Mexico
I
A big Teddy Bear man rakes the pebbles
of a Buddhist Zen sand garden out front
A totem pole watches while water drips
from boulders into pools in ancient rhythms
And a rock-lined creek sings a song
of renewal that gods have bowed to
You feel as though you've had Valium even before
walking through the screened porch door
into the organic nursery that is the foyer
Behind which the open arms of contentment await
A black cat named Cosmo curled in its lap
Cubbyholes, atriums, quiet-only areas
and enclosed patios attach like limbs
dressed in glass beads, rattan and organic cotton
Ceiling fans slow-dance the soft shawl of sun
from skylights and walls of glass
across clusters of houseplants
Indoor water recycles the sound of baptism
as it bubbles from a bamboo log
into a granite pond guarded by a stone fetish
Cement glistens wet and fog breathes new life
into the air from a fountain of ceramic
II
Like Taos itself, angles and levels
allow no squared-off judgments
Not with the cohabitation of these multi-cultured icons
The giftshop Buddha statue, dashboard Jesus
woodblocked Milagros, Yiddish proverbed mugs
Shiva and Freud cloth-sculptured magnets
and Saint Ann Patron of Lost Objects
All giving audience to the music of Arabic Groove
Italian Cafe and Sahara Lounge
You start to feel one with it all
as you sit and sip French roast
That you're part of what flows and glows
falls and rises, purrs and dances
That words could never wash away
or flush out the dirt of daily life
like the silence of this salvation
While gazing on the backyard garden
Verdant and blossomed with birdbath, benches
tiny temples and a mythological goat
whose belly pots a plant
A spider on the wall jumps onto your table
And you leap shriek into terror
But only think the Damn it to hell
that would expel you from Paradise
Recuperation is a line for the restroom
with Chinese lettering and lizards
on the ceiling that aren't alive
The Teddy Bear owner leads you to another bathroom
in the office where he counsels the depressed
the paranoid, the broken, the people who can't connect
You walk past the coffee bar blackboard
where the quote for the day reads
The most important thing about communication
is to hear what isn't being said
