The Vedanta Temple's bombastic bell is weathered with green illegible
words.
From The temple's smooth
wooden steps one can see the strand of oil rigs drilling
through "folded, faulted fractured sedimentary rocks," near
once pristine beaches.
A disembodied sing-song voice
delivers through a loudspeaker the Vedas,
Upanishads, the Buddha, Alfred North Whitehead, ask the same quiestion:
"What
is the I behind the eye?"
Planets not seen before
suddenly appear. Place is not anywhere
that is not theoretically everywhere; and centers no longer hold.
Unfold legs and walk
past the fat bronze bell,
past the full parking lot, leaving behind gods
with unbearable questions.