He Holds

on the bus--
poster tubes thrust into his hands by a girl without a seat,
a stranger's baby wearing huge adult-sized sunglasses
(also thrust upon him)

in the clinic--
a small monk's head
a tiny ear clogged with a pea
a needle threaded with blue thread

a red and white ball-
playing catch-
all the medicines behind glass-
with a little boy--a little monk

a packet of mendrup,
a bell, a damaru

before breakfast he's
stitched,
wiped tears

The Whistle

As Maya showed us our room at Khenpo Namdrol's guesthouse for the first time, she handed us two large skeleton keys, cautioning us to always keep the door to our room locked, as well as the outside hallway door, AND the sliding red metal gate. "Hmm...that's a lot of locks!" we thought.

That night, Khenpo sent Lakpa over to our room to explain about which lights worked on the battery when the power was off. Lakpa requested that we, "On," the porch light each evening so the night guard could see around the guesthouse. As the light was directly outside our window, we weren't too pleased to to have it on all night, but "On," it we did. Lakpa reiterated that we must keep the doors and gate locked at all times, as our building was, "On the main road," he said, pointing to the narrow path running next to the gate of the guesthouse and down through the rice paddies. "Many thieves," he said. "But don't worry, the night guard has a whistle."

Two days later, Lakpa announced at dinner that he was moving onto our floor that night--to sleep in the kitchen and make sure robbers didn't take any supplies from the nunnery being built behind the guesthouse. "So you're going to stay up all night looking out the window?" I asked. He said that no, he could sleep.

After the first night, Lakpa reported there'd been no robbers. The second morning at breakfast, when I asked how he'd slept, he said, "Very well thank you."

About fifteen minutes later he told me, "Oh, there were thieves last night."

"Thieves!?" what happened, I asked in surprise.

"There were three, but they ran away."

"Three? Trying to steal the rebar?" I asked.

"No, they broke into the temple!" he replied.

I'd heard the guard blowing his whistle in the night, but thought nothing of it as the guard blew his whistle a great deal every night. "To make sure the thieves know he's there. If they hear his whistle, they won't come," Lakpa had told me.

But come they did--jumping the gate, breaking the lock on the temple door, and scattering the mandala and it's pearls all over the floor. But then, the night guard whistled...and they ran away empty handed.

At the Clear Pool at Yangleshod

Leaves flutter,

   (feeling like fall),

as a young man takes a bath in his underwear,  repeatedly dunks into freezing water, 

washes his socks with a bar of soap on the concrete step;

the cave “priest”—still in street clothes (before having changed into his thin white lungi) vigorously finger-brushes his teeth.

A woman throws huge handfuls of what looks like mud,  

in to the koi, they swarm.

And the ngakpa K and I saw sitting in the field,

     takes his small bird off his shoulder,

          dips it in the water before putting it back in place,

              climbs the stairs to the gonpa.

Every few steps,

    the bird falls.

He patiently picks it up,

    replaces it.

I Didn't Believe

in change

that it could swell
like a dried fruit soaked in milk
unfurl tendrils of green
into my heart