CLIMBING TO TAKTSANG

                                                                                                                                                                                   Some of the things she says,

They stay with me.

When we were together in Bhutan

I remember her breezing up to the top

Of Taktsang: the Tiger’s nest,

In spite of hidden tumour.

She laughed when I told her I’d thought the Korean nuns

Were men.

I labored to the top too, my years and body fat, grave impediments;

Like the weight of karma.

She could have walked and didn’t need

The horse, but took it for my sake.

********

Some of the things she did, they stay with me.

Her laugh.

Her smile.

Her sense of wonder in the caves of Nepal.

Her attentive devotion

To Guru Rinpoche.

In Kopan, she said out loud

That to be a nun

Would be a beautiful thing.

Yet sad for some, I thought.

I made her angry in Bhaktapur

And in Paro

She took money from the ATM

Thinking I might leave her like a stone

To sink.

I wouldn’t do that.

In Bodhanath we were blessed

By Tibetan wise men

And by Therevada monks

In Koh Samui.

Our dharma is surely intertwined?

But where will the string of karma lead

Save to more suffering?

Better to suffer with her

Than without?

*********

I loved you in the Himalayan caves;

I loved you in the mountains of Lampang.

I loved you as the Guru’s healing waves

Of love consumed us climbing to Taktsang.

I love you as an emanation of

Yoginis from the Dharmakaya field.

A Yeshe Tsogyal filled with burning love

Transporting Gurus to the battle field.

I loved you in the Koh Samui sun,

I loved you on the sweet Gangetic plains.

I love to see you smile and having fun

I love to feel you ease life’s secret pains.

I loved you through the rains of Kathmandu,

I loved you as a thousand mantras sang

Around the jagged clifftops, as we drew

Closer to the temples of Taktsang.