we often meet for short conversations speak from our hearts i do not know vietnamese he
     knows little English once 
     he gave me a book then 
     a string of beads

my friend prays 10 hours 
in his temple 
on Fridays

prayer is the hardest work of all 
it makes him strong:	
                     his body is strong 
                     his head is full of hair 
                     his legs shoulders arms are strong 
                     he is 70 years old he is a groundskeeper outdoors in every season he
                          holds his arms out up like a weightlifter he is proud of his god

he wears his beads around his neck under his shirt where he can finger them when he needs
               to even when he’s mowing grass pruning shrubbery 

he shows them to me 
     small wooden knuckles strung
     discolored from his body’s oils 
     ritually rubbed unevenly worn 
     fingertip thumb devout breath transformed 
     each-and-every 	one

i am amazed	   want to kiss them 
                   the way i’d kiss the dalai lama’s hand	 
                   the cheek of a sleeping infant in its mother’s arms

my buddhist friend was a soldier 
             prisoner 
             could not be 
             re-educated finally 
             escaped 

he often cries while we talk

he has shown me pictures of prisoners in his country
     tears stream down his face 
     he gesticulates wildly 
     pain his voice 
     rising
     he can no longer contain what he’s endured 
     the suffering of others  



he cries whenever he speaks of his daughter the university scholar studying at the sorbonne
     before medical school she would be tending
                                         rice fields 
                                         a food cart 	
                                         back home

he cries when he shows me his beads lord buddha take me care

i know he is the better man  
     i see how 
     god allowed 
     this mighty warrior 
     humble sweeper of dead leaves 
     to be 
          battered tortured 
          wounded abused 
          nearly all his life

he cries when he explains thanks full

we bow like honorable men go our ways to work

i never know how to get through the rest of the day 	except	i know 
                                                        he prays for me 
                                                        too