Mandala of the Pile of Papers on the Dining Room Table
by Chloe MartinezStar of pain in your neck: turn it side to side,
it glows in the dark all the same. Your poster
of the Golden Temple keeps falling down over your
desk, and the latest baby announcement watches you
severely from the top of the pile, send the gift already,
says the baby, so new it hasn’t yet learned
how to smile. What is the proper order. How to
master your materials. Annual reminder: protect yourself
from the flu, and a catalogue full of things you hate
and also want. You try to imagine spending thousands on
the Lombok Bed, you stare at its hand-carved filigree, imported
perhaps from its namesake island in Indonesia, site
of a recent earthquake (death toll: twenty). Made in China,
more likely. The enormous headboard resembles a flower-
mandala but, I kid you not, painted white, and no illusory
demons wait here for the boho-chic sleeper to encounter
in dreams or visions. There will be no battle against the senses,
no progress from the simple periphery to the inner circle,
which contains, in some traditions, the most fearsome opponents,
some dangerously beautiful, others just plain dangerous. The catalogue
bedroom is light-filled, tidy. A single houseplant hangs
from an exposed beam, and a small green bottle of San Pellegrino
rests by the bedside. A room you float into, unencumbered by karma,
by want, by messy piles of paper. Mandala: a universe map.
At its center, enlightenment, which is to say, freedom
from causing harm. Move through it by touch, by starlight.
Demons may appear. Persevere. Don’t look them in the eye.
