Temple Dog

   There is a dog, on the beach here, who at several different times I thought belonged to several different people. Once, I saw him with a tall woman. Another time he trotted alongside a family of four. Today, on a walk down the beach, I have acquired him. He is a black lab with another wrinkly breed mixed in. He likes to chase chickens and prances cordially through the sand.
   My first acquisition this afternoon was a suggestion. A hint that there was a temple, down the beach and up a hill. In pursuit of this place, the dog and I walk the sand at low tide. Long ranks of coral angle into the waves, brown under the sun. I walk in the cool wet sand and rest under the shade of a few trees, watching the few people who wander in the tide pools, searching. This beach looks directly at the sea, not a bay, and so there are fewer houses than goats and cows, and quiet open spaces.
   The dog and I continue between fields and tide pools. He pauses to chase cows, with much clanging and yelping. We cross a field and turn up a path dappled with shade, and he knows where I am going although he is ahead. Far ahead. And then, he disappears, diving into the bushes. More cowbells and yelping.
   The temple is locked. A tree grows in the middle of it has dropped many red and orange and yellow fruit on the rock the temple is made of. A puddle remains from the morning rain, still in the hilltop calm. The cows chime and ponder my presence. The dog has vanished for safer shores. I sit on the steps and look through the leaves to the water as it stretches silver to the horizon. A small airplane motors by. The green mountains wrap around behind the temple, arms trailing into the waves where I can hear propellers and voices in the next bay.
   I look again past the gate. All is serene, punctuated by the calm fall of another fruit hitting the stone. Old offerings pile on the steps and shrine inside, the palm leaves they're made of bleached with sunlight. Offerings are usually woven plates or bowls, filled with flowers and an offering of food, like rice. Incense is placed on them and the whole item is sprinkled with holy water and prayer.
   In the midst of brambles, humidity, and bovines, the temple sits like a breath of breeze, pleasant and indifferent. Inside the air is patient. I wonder if a place is independent of what we do in it, I wonder if the prayers that have been said here linger with the colors on the floor, and if I can sense them.
   As I sit on the shady steps, a man and then a woman come by to check on the cows. They smile and say hello. On the walk back the sun is muffled with clouds. I follow a set of dog tracks, dug heavy into the dark sand, as they trot back down the beach.