Crash landing into a rice paddy, 
through flames our Buddhist neighbor
pulls his wife from the plane.  

Buddha appears on the tarmac with a stretcher.
Bandages, unguents, grafts.
Their wheel of suffering turns

towards astonishment; oozing of the wound,
blisters disappear, gone with Buddha’s fold-away
cot in the hospital room. The couple journey home

to “Welcome Back” posted on our lobby wall.
Sometimes Buddha appears in their apartment
eating a hot chili. Light filters through his body.

His patience sustains them. He has come with them
all the way from Burma.