The Blue Sky

"Eastward from here,

beyond Buddha-worlds ten times as

numerous as the sands of the Ganges

there is a world called

PURE AS LAPIS LAZULI

its Buddha is called Master of Healing,

AZURE RADIANCE TATHAGATA"

It would take you twelve thousand summer vacations 

driving a car due east all day every day

to reach the edge of the lapis lazuli realm of

Medicine Old Man Buddha;

East. Old Man Realm,

East across the sea, yellow sand land

Coyote Old Man land

Silver, and stone blue.

*

Blue, Belo, "bright colors of the flames"

flamen / brahman,

beltane, "blue fire" --

Sky.

[The dappled cloud zone --

Sanskrit sku "covered"

skewed (pied) skewbald (..."Stewball")

skybald / piebald] --

 

Horse with lightening feet!

A mane like distant rain,

the turquoise horse,

a black star for an eye

white shell teeth.

Pony that feeds on the pollen of flowers

may he

make thee whole,

Heal, hale... whole.

The Spell of the Master of Healing.

Namo bhagavate bhaishajyaguru-vaidurya-

  prabharajaya tathagata arhate samyak

  sambuddhaya tadyatha om bhaishajye

    bhaishajye bhaishajya samudgate

svaha.

"I honor the Lord, the Master of Healing,

shining like lapis lazuli, the king, the

Tathagaata, the Saint, the perfectly enlightened

one, saying OM TO THE HEALING

TO THE HEALING TO THE HEALER HAIL!

svaha."

*

Shades of blue through the day.

T'cu chueh a border tribe near China

Turc

Turquise: a hydrous phosphate of aluminum

  a little copper

  a little iron --

*

In the reign of Emperor Nimmayo

when Ono-no-Komachi the strange girl poet

was seventeen, she set out looking for her father

who had become a Buddhist wanderer. She took ill

on her journey, and sick in bed one night saw

AZURE RADIANCE THUS-COME MEDICINE MASTER

in a dream. He told her she would find a hot springs

on the bank of the Azuma river in the Bandai mountains

that would cure her; and she'd meet her father there.

"Enchantment as strange as

the Blue up above" my rose of San Antone

Tibetans say that goddesses have lapis lazuli hair.

Azure Old French azur,

Persian lazhward, "lapis lazuli"

-- blue bead charms against the evil eye--

(Tim and Kim and Don and I were talking about

what an awful authoritarian garb Doctors

and Nurses wear, really, how spooky it is.

"What should they wear?"

-- "masks and feathers!"

Gary Snyder from "Mountains and Rivers Without End"