Four a.m. sandy courtyard, Orion rising
The great drum booms
from the painted bell-tower
And the bell then bongs
morning sutra chanting
in the Great Hall up another flight of stairs
& one more terrace further up the slope,
is the hall of all
the birchwood blocks.
that print the thousand-volume Triple Basket
Eighty thousand carved blocks rank on rank.
Cooled by grillwork open windows
—one block page says it,
“live the wisdom gone beyond:
consciousness is shapely,
being, empty formal;
form, is freedom,
these fast deep bows
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