Prayer Flags

faded prayer flags over the porch
stir in faint new jersey breeze
steady trill of crickets in the sycamores and rhododendra
over variorum roar of traffic shifting axes with the changing light 
red green red green red green
(green really a variant of blue, an aid they say to the color blind)
the whishhhhh of tires on asphalt
sometimes the deeper throated rumble of motorcycle or big bone rattling of truck
or surprisingly metallic clatter of jet overhead to newark from newark
(hope they make it)

brown leaf falls from sycamore lands on azalea
the memorized white pink red blossoms gone gone 
totally gone
gone where?
gone where the snow went when it melted
where my lap goes when i stand
where the memory goes when it goes
where the jet roar fades and goes from me, and i from it

where the bright blue yellow red green of the prayer flags went
out on the breeze that stirs various things in turn
not multiple separable breezes but
one churning no color sea we paddle and bob in 
swim and drift in
through which the yip of neighbor dog, chuckle of alarmed squirrel, pots and pans percussion of car stereo at red light
swim toward me and toward all and are gone

gone where the colors go
prayer flags faded to unvarying gray brown traffic smudge 
yet in early afternoon sun surprisingly translucent
like old bones bleached of opacity, purged of weight
and inscribed in whisper thin black lines
ghosts of prayers faint ghosts of buddhas
faint fainter fainting into the new jersey breeze