Black and grey mandala flower on the chest

The sand is almost finished, and Lobsang says my petals are crooked again. He says a mandala forgives nothing, not even a lazy hand. I have been sitting on the cold stone since before the bells, tapping the funnel of coloured sand with a metal rod so the grains fall in lines no thicker than a hair. Eleven days of work, and the centre is the only part that looks right yet.

You would laugh at how small the whole thing is, no wider than a dinner plate, yet the rings go out and out until a stranger could get lost in them. Each petal has its own shadow, dark ochre pressed against pale grey, so the flower seems to lift off the board when the lamp moves. Lobsang says that is the point: the eye should be drawn inward and then given a way back out.

On the last morning the monks will chant and then brush the whole thing into the river below the courtyard. I asked him why we do not keep it. He only smiled and said the sand has done its work by being seen, and that the river carries it down to the lowlands, where some child will find a grain caught in her boot and never know where it came from.

I am writing because I want you to know I am not sad about it. I thought I would be. Instead I keep thinking of the little gold chain you wore to Mum's birthday, how you kept touching it when you were nervous. Keep something small close, I think, and let the rest go down the hill. Write back soon and tell me whether the rain has reached Leeds yet.

Your brother, Tenzin