At the Tibetan Cultural Center
This being Indiana, there’s a hoop
at the Tibetan Center, and we play,
the monks and I, in saffron and in jeans.
We do not score a lot, but we set picks
and pass the ball and rebound our missed shots.
That’s how it goes – for we are not The Knicks,
we’re five foot something. On a sunny day,
we head outside. I too am in the loop,
I water daisies and forget-me-nots
like Milarepa. I know what it means
to meditate. Is there another way
to free each sentient being? Just for kicks,
we play at ball; the flowers do not droop.
Life goes its round, and in our in-betweens,
we laugh and joke. These are our little plots.
John Claiborne Isbell is a writer and now-retired professor currently living in Paris with his wife Margarita. Their son Aibek lives in California with his wife Stephanie. John’s first book of poetry was Allegro (2018); he also publishes literary criticism, for instance An Outline of Romanticism in the West (2022) and Destins de femmes: Thirty French Writers, 1750-1850 (2023), both available free online. John spent thirty-five years playing Ultimate Frisbee and finds it difficult not to dive for catches any more.
Amethyst Review 