Sainte Terrer
(for Carlyle Coash)

The pale head of a freshly shaved monk
equipped with sunblock
extra shoelaces and begging bowl
thankful for all offered
tablesraps, carrottops
and the occasional dismembered finger
learning unattachment from a strict vegan diet.

On your left wrist a wooden mala
eighteen beads of sanded cedar on elastic cord
one hundred and eight incantations
of om mani padma hum
each bead a benefactor
who has sponsored a leg of the journey
from Boulder to Tassajara.

Roving about the countryside
as in the Middle Ages
on the pretense of traveling
a la Sainte Terre
the Holy Land.
Children called you "Sainte Terrer,"
Saunterer, or Holy-Lander
erasing your tracks in dust.

Peregrination
the migratory urge to be as birds
a practiçe centuries old
handed down from master to disciple
a genetic trace this compulsion
for flight.

An inability to remain quietly in a room
why you are compelled in movement
the continuum of ancestors and totems
the walking details of earth-
If you don't like to step on thorns and rocks
as you walk around the planet
you can pave the entire earth with shoe leather
or you can make a pair of sandals.