The monks of my father\u2019s God wore orange & smelled
\nlike matted hair and sandalwood. They were extraordinarily calm<\/p>\n
& not quite there. As in, their eyes saw deeper, their throats sang lower.
\nThey would stream into our home on warm Texas evenings, beards<\/p>\n
arousing suspicion in the neighbors, for we were the colorful ones
\non the block, with hair spun from marigolds, skin made of almonds.<\/p>\n
They would chant & dance in our living room, arms waving like paintbrushes,
\n& I, half their height, was made to join & recite ancient words,<\/p>\n
following the flicker of their robes with gaping eyes. I would not realize why
\nthey wore orange until, years later, a spiritual wreck, my third eye muddied<\/p>\n
by daily ablutions of whiskey, I scoured the memories of my remaining senses.
\nThe smell of coconut and camphor. The bite of earthen smoke<\/p>\n
the night the neighbor demanded to enter. This will be quick
\nif you have nothing to hide. How quickly his investigation halted<\/p>\n
in awe of our blissful monks, who were not quite human: more like fire,
\nthey flickered as they danced, their thousand scents escaping through the open door.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The monks of my father\u2019s God wore orange & smelled like matted hair and sandalwood. They were extraordinarily calm & not quite there. As in, their eyes saw deeper, their throats sang lower. They would stream into our home on warm Texas evenings, beards arousing suspicion in the neighbors, for we were the colorful ones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[57],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3Qc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16448,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14768\/revisions\/16448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}