After Six
At six the west wall whitens.
I turn the radio down.
My hand stays
on the dial
a moment longer.
The phone lies face-up
beside the cup,
your name unchanged.
I used to let it ring once
before answering,
finishing whatever small thing
my hands were doing.
The minute passes.
No sound comes.
The light moves on.
The radio stays low.
The spoon between my fingers
does not reach the cup.
—
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A concise and impartial dictionary of absence, promises, quarrels, ordinary objects, and the troublesome instability of words.
The City of Service
The temple we inherit is a building from which almost all necessity has been removed. Nothing must be brought for it to continue being what we call a temple. The sanctuary asks nothing of us. Stone is good at this kind of independence.
A living temple was otherwise.
Water had to come in. So did grain, cloth, oil, aromatic substances, fuel. The things required for worship arrived because someone carried them across a threshold.
Houses of Wood, Light, and Smoke
Some of Angkor’s most intimate ruins do not rise above the ground at all. They are postholes, low mounds, hearths and ponds: durable traces of a domestic city built largely from things that decay. To restore that city is to see Angkor not only as stone, but as wood, smoke, water, repair, and people living within calling distance.