Yak Meditation

by Dennis Camire

Sipping his first of twenty yak-butter teas

While sitting on the zafu of cured yak-mat

Beneath the black yurt’s yak-leather roof,

 he muses on his yak-wool sweater and boots

warming him with the yak-dung fueled stove

 so the yak, perhaps, are the blessed masters

granting his enhanced practice at

the altitude of the supernatural

as male pack-yaks sherpa supplies

up the steep mountain valley pass

while mothers sacrifice their fatty milk

for yak-butter candles illumining those

ancient scrolls’ chanted prayers rising

like yak breath in the cold—until, soon,

these dawn ponderings on each yak-calf

possibly being a re-incarnating master

seeking to deepen his own dharmic practice

grazes mindfulness’s upper pasture

to induce oneness, bliss, and having that

heaven in his hat which he takes off, now,

in blessing each yak-dung doghouse passed

during chores of gathering more reliquary

of yak teeth and horns for prayers to achieve

a like yak-mastery of service to humanity

where the grass he, too, one day grazes,

as reincarnated yak, becomes calories

to fuel another monk’s selfless acts

of sweeping the blind woman’s home

or suturing broken hearts with sutras

prior to slowly wrapping himself back

inside the same black-yak comforter

where he feels like he’s collapsing

into the heart of a great master

and will wake with the same vision

of these blessed bovine bodhisattvas

inspiring a like dawn mediation

over yak-butter tea fueling his own

monastic days of silence, prayer, labor,

and the soft laughter merging with yak

sighs when, gathering the same hardened

dung patties all the way to the upper pasture

where Gods and dead masters abide, he realizes

he’s finally found and following his noble path…