HOMAGE TO HOLINESS

Threads harvested from threadbare clothing.
Pea-sized bits of bread, sliced from meagre rations,
Secretly hoarded for sacred purpose.

Mala makers work at night
in the dark of the stinking and freezing stone cell.
Chewed bits of bread become dough again,

and, by feel, frozen fingers knead the dough
Until tiny beads of bread emerge.
A tiny twig, again by feel, pierces each bead through.

Then in solemn prayerful silence and focus,
the nun passes her harvested thread through the first bead.
She ties a knot, no easy task with freezing fingers in the frozen dark.


And so it goes; all sacred duties take their own time.
One by one; one bead of bread threaded; one knot knotted.
The nun nears collapse. But now, at last, her task is done.

As the last knot is knotted, the last bead in its place,
The nun sighs and mutters, whispers, a prayer of thanks.
One hundred and eight beads plus one.
She has made her Mala.
Om Mani Padme Hum