Alex Burger

Most of my adult life I’ve loved Jars. Wrote a poem about them at my lowest points in my twenties: “I’m putting my life in jars / jars of dried tomatoes in olive oil / jars of green pickles / . . . lonely afternoons a half gallon jar / a quick look crossing Prospect street in a jar near the back / anguish jars / fearful jars / don’t you dare speak to me again jars . . .”

Late 2018, year end I bought new spice jars: magnets on my wall. I peer at them each day, admiring potency captured in glass . . .

Until I realize this is a different phase of my life, I may not need jars like I used to.. “Spill all the spices, let them bleed” a trusted friend says. Hell yeah . . .

Back in Mongolia, I visit the Gandantegchinlen buddhist monestary. The great statue  of  Megjid-Janraiseg (the lord who watches in every direction) was built in 1809.  In the 1930s, the communist government of Mongolia destroyed most monasteries, killed 15,000 lamas, and by 1938 Russian troupes dismantled the statue and used it for scrap metal.

The statue was rebuilt in 1992, 87 feet high, covered in gold, with more than 200 pounds of silk, 2286 precious stones, and filled with 27 tons of medicinal plants, 334 sutras and 2 millions mantras.  Megjid-Janraiseg surrounded by one thousand statuettes of God Amitabha, like dolls in a case I say, but told to be quiet.