1
I went to Chiang Mai for a rendezvous, but instead, I fell in love with a temple cat. In her green eyes, I saw someone I loved long ago—when I was young, in a previous life before this latest incarnation—a time when the world was primitive and pure, when people were kind and things were simple, when a thing was what it was and not something else. And I wept.
2
Every day, I went to Wat Lok Moli. I stood by one side of the temple entrance, waiting to see you, while waves of tourists came and went. A layperson sat obediently in the posture of chapphayom, receiving instructions from the temple monk, tourists craned their necks while gazing at the temple murals, pretending to be interested or feigning respect.
I knew you would come, and when you did, you strutted down from the base of the chedi—a regal throne—oblivious to the tourists, their phones, and the startled, confused expressions on their faces.
Here you came, down from that sacred perch, oblivious to all the eyes on you, striding down the hall like royalty—regal, majestic, with a tired and indifferent look in your green eyes.
The world is vast, its woes many, and sorrows deep. But what of that? You’ve seen it all—this life, the one before, and all that is to come.
3
In the courtyard of Wat Chiang Man, I saw a graveyard flower, its white blooms large and sensual, half of the petals fallen, lying on the lawn under a March sky. I wept, but Shakyamuni, a saint and a being of my ilk, long gone, could not hear me. I saw my cat—or rather, her phantom—walking past, the bare branches of the graveyard flower over her ethereal head, the petals under her otherworldly feet.
4
In the hills outside town, the temples gleamed golden, their murals rich, the pilgrims numerous and devout. In the yard, on the old tree, large fruits grew from the twisted trunk like warts. I heard the bells and saw devotees sitting in chapphayom, chanting prayers. It felt like a dream from eons ago, faintly familiar and homelike.
5
In India, they call it a stupa; in China, a pagoda; and here, in the land of Siam, it’s a chedi—all for bones and relics. What difference does it make? I sat next to the chedi of Wat Lam Chang on this day, and I thought: she had been long gone, and soon I would follow. And that was good.
Yego’s Chronicles 