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I sit in a courtyard and listen to the crisp sound of fabric cracking in the wind and the wild clanging of the bells being manipulated by the same. I feel the brightness and intensity of the sun on the left of my face in contrast to the dark shadow of the clouds moving in fast from the right as I sit on the cement steps opposite the main temple noting how grim are the white, green and red prayer scarves whipped by that trapped and panicked force; those scarves attached to the golden handles on the red doors so typical of this experience. I hear distinctly the breathy-weak "Chtew Chtew" of a bird nearby and the creaking of a window being swayed against its will.

I sense more than see the ancient nun with the milky, bulging eye and prayer beads repeatedly lowping past on the rounds of her circumambulation, mumbling her oms and padmays breathlessly as she caresses her beads of reminder, stopping only to spin her hope to the above before beginning her next round.
Now I see another comes, sheltered in her red robes and bald head. And I am reminded that I have heard it said some believe hair to be a source of glory unsurpassed and that when they speak with their gods they must cover their brilliance so as to not provoke resentment. Our glory is removed, shaved, clean but these same would say she shames the gods with shorn head and ought to cover herself and I question the boundless, "Why must we hide ourselves from that which we claim knows our inner workings, created our steps and orchestrates our realities?"
I forget time and wonder about a deity that governs all of creation and would yet be threatened by a woman's head. I close my eyes and think my thoughts and listen to the swish swish swish of her sandaled feet as she moves across the courtyard. My eyes open involuntarily as a bluster of energy picks up again with a deafening clarity of whipped cloth, a demand to posses that which it can not hold, and the clack of the mettle box nearby containing urns of oil. Here is oil for burning from boxes that most people use to fry eggs. I miss the distinctive aroma of butter candles that burn in larger temples, and I glimpse the navy blue calico fall at the hem of her robes as she sweeps past with a whispered rustle. Tears fall unbidden and anxiety clenches like a fist in my stomach.
The plastic wrapper of some visitor's sweet skitters in circles on the cement round and round manipulated endlessly by the cruel and noisy current till she interferes with the weather's diversion

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