Sun and Rain

The rain, fond visitor
breath of warm
wet sky and
smell of trees
this is heaven's
kiss

All sensation
self-referent
enwrapped in
delusion
warm skin as
untrustworthy
as a cloud

The sun travels
across the sky
we abide
like helpless cattle
while seasons
revolve

All purposes
fleeting and empty
our teeming minds
dripping with
plans
we hardly
notice the
circle enclosing
our lifetimes.


I combined these two poems which were fragments I wrote in my journal in those moments while waiting for an appointment or a friend. I felt how much life is illustrated or demarcated by the weather and seasons, how much it informs our thoughts.

One Wish

When I was a little girl my mother read me fairy tales from an old book that is now out of print called “Sven and Svea, or the Tales of Lapland.”

Few books stand out in my memory as clearly as that one. It could be that stories that are read to us sink in better when we are young, and particularly when we are in bed sick, which was often the case with me. At any rate, certain images and ideas were embedded in my mind.

One story was about a girl named Svea who with her brother Sven went on a perilous quest to convince the fearsome Bergsfrau to spare her family. The Bergsfrau (which I suppose might mean literally, wife of the mountain or woman of the mountain) lived way up high in the mountains in a cave and of course, it was snowing the whole time. Svea was often afraid but she was highly resourceful.

At the end, she succeeded in her task and the Bergsfrau offered to grant her one wish. She could be beautiful, wise or good. Without a moment’s hesitation, Svea requested to be beautiful. For, as she reasoned, anyone can become wise or good, but beauty is only given.

I may not have all the details right as my child’s memory is not as good as it once was. I wonder if we were given the same chance today, would we have answered as Svea did? Is the quest for beauty the ultimate goal? Or is wisdom? Or, perhaps goodness is the quality that will bring the most happiness.

I look around at my peers and especially fellow women in my country and I believe we are all under the same spell. We want to be young and beautiful and will do anything to attain such a state. Wisdom is debatable. One woman’s wisdom is another woman’s folly. Goodness is fine, of course, but in contemporary society, a bit tedious. The dangerous and the immoral fascinates us more, if you pick up any magazine or turn on television.

So, I wonder if perhaps we need to redefine what we cherish the most. Do the traditional values of compassion and kindness still hold a value for us? Or do we yearn for something more related to material success and well being?

Is mere survival enough? Having food, clothing and shelter might be the ultimate goal for the majority of humans on our planet. But for others, an elusive promise is always over the next horizon. It might be an award or honor or achievement, or challenge to be fulfilled. For some, a marriage; for others, a divorce.

All those superlatives are such slippery words. Goodness – wisdom – beauty. Everyone has their own concept. But when we are given images continually of what is considered beautiful by society at large, it is difficult to cling to one’s own conception. We each have to walk a dangerous path in life to find the true wisdom, and we each have to make a lot of choices to attain any measure of goodness. But beauty? I think we have lost the way.

What perhaps Svea knew better was that beauty is all the way through from the inside to the outside, like a perfect ripe apple just off the tree. I think she wanted what was inside of her to show on the outside. If we could apply that idea in our lives, perhaps we would have more than one wish come true.

Walking in Lhasa

The street is bare today
I can see the blue sky
And hear the voices of the dakinis

But the shops are closed tight
Leaving only their two language signs
With the Chinese letters always bigger

Our syllables hang like prayer flags
From the mala of a million mantras
Echoing into each mountain pass

I never forget the juniper incense, forbidden now
The prayer flags on the roof
Where the red flag flaunts its yellow stars

I can’t forget
My husband prostrating along here
Before he went to prison

Sigh. How long ago was it that
They let him come home to die?
His black eyes still gleaming

The soldiers at the end of the street
Do they know where they are?
Lhasa, the holy place, where a god once lived

Where so many gods still live
Except the ocean of wisdom
Who fled so long ago

I touched his robe as a girl
My hair in braids so tight on my scalp
I yelped at my mother that morning

The khata in my trembling hands
How long ago was that?
I shall never forget

The crane never flies to the evergreen
Since the soldiers came
They ate him for dinner, that beautiful bird

The snow leopard fled
The eagles and elk and reindeer
All of them meals for the soldiers

Vultures and crows keep their vigil now
Wait for them to die and leave this holy place
The birds will eat up every scrap, all but the bones

There they are, all dressed in black
With helmets to protect them from virtue
Do they know where they are?

Or are my old eyes deceiving me?
Are they just pilgrims, my kinfolk
Come to celebrate Losar?

***

This poem and painting were inspired by a photo taken March 14, 2009 that appeared on the Phayul website. The caption read that shops were closed and paramilitary and plainclothes police had established patrols and checkpoints throughout Lhasa on the first anniversary of the anti-Chinese riot.