Saturn's Fingerprints, by Andrew K. Peterson

Vajradhara. Traditional thangka painting by Sherab Palden Beru (Scotland, India, b. Tibet) contemporary

Saturn’s Fingerprints
 
Ultimate reality may be more painful than any pain you
experience in your life…although you would like to see things
changing – not working out as they were, but reshuffling themselves – 
at the same time, the world remains as it is. – Chogyam Trungpa 
 
Slaughter your obsessions
With other people’s opinions
Vajra at the center alter
(And we will get to that)
A statue of some past
at his knees, each known one
carved by some master gone before
Each figure a master that sat before them too, 
draped at their gold shoulders, 
white & yellow tufted garlands
Signifying clouds the storm gathers, 
passing, the sun flies again into clearing
 
Thought maybe a gender trafficking in rhythm
 
At the base beyond, snow garudas purr & sim-
ultaneous protect & indifferently prowl 
from a sitting position anywhere they are, they are
Making white noise, the nerve
Fierce & gentle, sensible, 
abundant 
 
The fashion gold plates stand straight up behind the sitter
 
Robes absorb light’s disintegrating chalice 
dragons gather, enfold flowers in their wings 
mouths smoldering thunder
beneath the hypnotic order   & mazed beyond above
the maze of day’s confessions, 
confusion, disillusions, denials, ruts 
turmeric in lapiz lazuli, lace, Ceylon, silk, saffron 
 
Along paths too overgrown with weeds, 
darker petals, kelp pools loop 
upright in the storm antler gather, 
the one who is one
the one with the pillow, robes obscure
paunch, & ass, the frame with all the blind aches
& still he sits, nest pale, 
translucent skin ovening lungs / the shore, 
               bled, the swerve
        murmur of roman lambs
 
Orchards bringing song, 
Martyr in the wheel orchid 
strumming   gasping    wakes
squall welts along the topaz raft
branch & chimera suture 
bandage of a leaf-eating bandit’s wound
 
Caught along the road
the clouds blow away,
mountains blow away,
huts mown, trees gone down,
grass burned, sky 
billowing, 
still, away…
 
The pillow settles along rump’s adjusted torque
 
Lungs, the day’s nudge –
The summons of myth –
That masks the truth of night
 
Darkness takes what it does
because we give it length
What myth seeks to lift
Is made smaller – without malice, 
a gentle shrine to here 
& task begins again to unmake it – 
Restless, 
skedaddle to the next
indivisible jewel 
             crown hovering
             inflamed

Andrew K. Peterson

Andrew K. Peterson is a poet and editor based in Boston. He is the author of four poetry books, most recently Good Game (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2020). His chapbook The Big Game is Every Night (Moria, 2017) was sent to the White House along with other chapbooks from the Locofo Chaps series as a collective protest against the current administration's policies. A previous chapbook bonjour meriwether and the rabid maps (Fact-Simile Press) appeared in an exhibition on poets' maps at the Univ. of Arizona Poetry Center. In 2017 he co-organized the Boston Poetry Marathon. He is a co-founder/editor of summer stock, an online literary journal.