A Tibetan Daughter

A Tibetan Daughter(to Tsering Wangmo Dhompa)she builds a stupa of words for her mothera tibetan daughtershe walks all day in distant lands imaging the places of conception and birthshe greets her mother in elements of physical existence on earthshape of a tree. feel of the rain. whispers in the wind. glow ofbutter lamps.even her wedding ring..she feels her mother's hands on the beads of the rosary now she tells,in common faith she dwells.a tibetan daughter resurrects an exile wish-treeshe flips through pages of an alternate history:the stateliness of a chieftain grandfather, enmeshed life of a princessexile of a nation, the snowland, to which she returns her mother in ashes.a tibetan shravana kumar carries in her heart her mothereach day she lights a lamp of thought soaked in butterfrom her memory chest of a score and fourand offers it to the stupa of words she builds for her mother*Tsering Wangmo Dhompa is a contemporary Tibetan exile poet. Her mother, who was a daughter of a chieftain in eastern Tibet, fled into exile in 1959 and became the first woman to join the Tibetan parliament in exile. Tsering lost her single parent in a car accident..* * * . Borrowing the Bardo. (conversation between a Tibetan librarian and a research scholar).but we have slant eyes and flat noses, he said.wish I had your eyes and nose, I evidencedclapping eyelids in their ragged bedand finger-scissoring an interfering nose.he simpered furling up a long silken sleeveand reaching out to the 'bardo' on a regulated shelfmuttered sotto voce: our religion a mistress to romancers and.and our gods are pampered brats, perhaps yours too, I addedthink of offerings to stone gods and of empty stomachs churning inside out(they threaten to slit my tongue if I speak of the milk urinating one)my tongue curledit's all about karma. people dying. denied. he took a rather exhausted breath(the pundit, the monk, the father are jobs. either well done or undone) I thoughtfaith in karma I do not mean to disdain. faith finds its altar in the heart of doers. thefarmers and earthworms working the soil. the trees holding the ground.I am just not a temple person, I dare declare.it's how you like to see the other side of the perceptible mountain from this window.how it is relative to perception. He slurped his butter tea gazing at the snow peaks(some things like unearthing a maternal surname, not the one my mother had from herfather, is not an unthinking but a shallow dive) I recallthe mountain brings to me the spiritual than religious. faith is personal, rituals social.so you reckon.ah, such cosmopolitan fashionable phrases are not for us, us whose livesare destined to be re-collective, he exasperated.that, stressed he handing me 'bardo thodol', that isthe tragedy of having to be a nationthe tragedy perhaps of not having a nation!.*Bardo Thodol is the famous Tibetan Book of the Dead..* * *. Creation.Water fall. ing.on the lap of water.divine nectar.splash-ing. in curling womb. of self-embrace.from where flows.–your mighty grace..* * *. Grocery.You and I entangle, perfectly, like branches of a tree in high wind,our eyes sparkle in lightening from the grey skies, and tongues dart outthe potion, our poisoned bodies repeating the thundering outside.sweating with your leak thenyou draw outbreathing whistlesdisengage armsand unfold your eyesyour eyes indifferent to melike the calm day in oblivion of the stormy night.we are now I without youyou are the cigarette ashesI am the butt in your ashtray burning cold.On my way home I greet eyes like yoursindifferent to my story of cold burningmy fifty rupees of daily earning.I roll chapattis salt chilieswith love in a newspaperand as soon he is gone for laborI think the grocery for tomorrow.* * *.~ Shelly Bhoil, poet and academic, lives in India and Brazil. Her debut poetry book is titled An Ember from Her Pyre and Other Poems (Writers Workshop, 2016). Her doctoral research is a study of Tibetan nationalism in exile through the evolution of Tibetan-English fiction. She is currently co-editing two books on Tibetan exile narratives to be published by Lexington Books.