Standing in line. I hate it most of the time. This time it was more like a very linear party. 

We stood in line cheerfully. The lady monk who gave us instructions said she had seen lines four city blocks long in the rain...this was nothing. The Cambodians were by far in the majority, and they were very friendly. 

In the middle of a prairie suburb south of Minneapolis, a Cambodian Buddhist temple sprung up from the offerings of the Hmong refugees. Today we stand in line to see the relics of the Buddha and his principle saints, then nosh a little at the Cambodian culture festival across the way.

Underneath the golden umbrella, there were several saints relics. The lady monk who greeted us in line said to expect the relics to have the same presence as the saints themselves. I was curious and open minded, but a bit skeptical. As I approached Shakyamuni's blood relic, the relic of Buddha himself, my cell phone rang. It was my son, who had not talked to me in seven months, inviting himself to dinner. That was miracle enough for me. 

Barefoot, you might enter heaven. Bring water, in case the pumps are being fixed. 

If the mystical holiness of blood relics of Milarepa and Siddhartha himself were not enough to lift your spirit to the door of eternity, there were tables of lingerie and bras marked down for the pilgrims, special. 

Across from the temple housing the touring relics of Buddhist teachers and saints, the rubber thong slippers were priced to sell. 

Boiled peanuts, bubble tea and Vietnamese tea on a cinder block wall. It says Cambodian Culture Festival! 

As we left the temple where Siddartha the Buddha rang our phone, we saw a man and his dog next to a tent full of promise. Our promise had been fulfilled. Our blessing sat lightly on our hearts, like whipped cream. 

The ore docks an hundred years, the birds a few, the yellow field flowers a day and another, then. For me, a moment. 

Who can live in the day-long cities of clouds, and survey the millenial waters? Who knows time as the percussion of his own wings against the rush of light, and the air as his instrument of melody? The bird, the song that sings itself against the sky. 

Fly ! 

The whole world lies at my feet. It is kind of crusty. 

This thing is the despair of all empires...the fruit and seed of life which cannot be made to kneel before your king. It is to be wild that all life aims, and strikes. And wildness is this thing, so small and peaceful in its sexual sleep. Tremble when it wakens, if you would rule. 

Et in Arcadia ego. Also in eden, in paradise, I am there, and death. 

Two and a half billion years ago, this stone was formed. Those billions are never to be yours. The stone shares some laden sense of years, of folded secret age...but billions? I can't do it. I can't go in that direction, of such heartless numbers. They aren't mine, or yours to know. 

Maggie and Sara on the deck, watching their respective interests. 

See? What did I tell you about her? It is all true. It is all in the truth, in the seeing. Right there. 

Sara saw this bromeliad and said ?God is Dr. Suess!? 

This layered dream of hyacinth and lily pad and lily, where the poor come to smell the wanton nature, and the rich come to choose among the dreams. 

oh the touch and hither scent and come to me of lilies 

In the brilliant hall of transparency and living clouds, a stellated dodecahedron hangs amids the bird-like bones of steel. It is pure geometry come to shine its tempered symmetry on the hothouse, on the lascivious lily below. 

Why does this carosel horse look toward heaven with the anguish of a fallen angel? How do we find pleasure amidst these startling truths, the story of the fall carved and painted and set to spin our children round? 

She wanted to ride the carosel that day. My prayers were answered. And she got to ride the carosel. 

Sara frames the hand painted carosel flowers with the serene beauty of a woman who never forgot her own childhood.