Tenzin Tsundue

I recently read KORA and SEMSHOOK, two great books by Tibetan poet/writer/activist, Tenzin Tsundue.

Here are two wonderful poems from KORA:

HORIZON

From home you have reached
the Horizon here.
From here to another
here you go.

From there to the next
next to the next
horizon to horizon
every step is a horizon.

Count the steps
and keep the number.

Pick the white pebbles
and the funny strange leaves.
Mark the curves
and cliffs around
for you may need
to come home again.

~

LOSAR GREETING

Tashi Delek!

Though in a borrowed garden
you grow, grow well my sister.

This Losar
when you attend your Morning Mass,
say an extra prayer
that the next Losar
we can celebrate back in Lhasa.

When you attend your convent classes,
learn an extra lesson
that you can teach children back in Tibet.

Last year
on our Happy Losar,
I had an idli-sambhar breakfast
and wrote my BA final exams.
My idlis wouldn’t stand
on my toothed steely fork,
but I wrote my exams well.

Though in a borrowed garden
you grow, grow well my sister.

Send your roots
through the bricks,
stones, tiles and sand.
Spread your branches wide
and rise
above the hedges high.

Tashi Delek!

Find more of Tenzin Tsundue's writings here:
http://www.friendsoftibet.org/tenzin/writings.html