Ramadan

Red sky burns to ash
around the New Moon's cradle.
Ramadan begins.

Tiel

I don't know how to bring the streams together, these two extraordinary teachers, each shattering my life but each with a different idea of what happens next. I think I need to be very quiet, and listen to a lot of silence.

I heard the first bell, signalling the end of meditation tonight. But after the dedication prayer, Jef struck the bell so softly that I couldn't hear it, could only hear the silence struck softly, three times. Put my hands together and bowed. Then laid my hands down in my lap, palms up, the fingers loosely interwoven, and looked at them, for a long time.

A lonely tumult in the clouds.

I am grateful, though I don't understand.