Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

I take refuge in Buddha 

That’s what we whisper at chùa

in hushed voices

Our breaths falling in and out

Like the ebb and flow of the tide

It’s just a saying my mother taught me

The courtyard at chùa is verdant and serene

A playground of bonsai topiaries

And white lotuses

Blooming in a downpour

In the center sits a white lady buddha

Built from a porous stone

Adjacent is the monk’s house

A small, gated townhouse like all the others in DC

But inside our long patterned carpets and bowls of fruit

Downstairs is the kitchen

Where I’ll go for Bun Thang

Or ladder noodle soup

I pray on the sundays we come to chùa

But I used to sit with my eyes open

my heart beating impatiently

A grenade in my chest

My mother sits in her home

Knees folded under her

Eyes closed

Chin pointed towards the Buddha on the bureau

Which sits on a stack of books

She prays for the safe delivery of her sister’s baby

 Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

I sit in the darkness of my room

March twenty-twenty; a desolate time

Drenched with despair

I whisper cloak and dagger secrets

In the static dark

Clutching my golden necklace with a small pendant

The golden grooves of Buddha

Pulse between my fingers

 Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

My Ong and Ba, my grandparents

Sit on the floor of the room on the second story of their house

Where an ivory Buddha sits on the top shelf

Between picture frames of my great grandparents

Who have since passed

Ong and Ba pray that they’ll watch over us

Me, and my brother, and my little cousin

 Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

My brother soaks in the light of the sun room

Pruning bonsai trees

The way the monks at chùa

Have taught him

The thick stems bleed

A thirst for good health

 Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

I sit with my knees folded under me

My cool, bare feet scuffing against the threadbare rug 

Bullets of rain hit the temple roof

Ash drip down my fingers

From the red incense stick clasped between my hands

I stand to place it in the urn next to the shrine of Buddha

Which is aglow with 

 A rich and radiant gold that seems to seep and ooze

Surrounded by provisions of ripe mandarins and pears

The shorter the stick was, the longer that person had prayed

I supposed

Mine had been on the shorter end lately

I whisper my final soft spoken words

 Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

It’s still a saying my mother taught me

That has granted me light in every crevice of my life