For Chögyam Trungpa, the Eleventh Trungpa Tulku, who Fled Tibet for India when the Chinese Invaded
By John Balaban
Chased by Chinese troops, the monks
blinked like owls in the sun sheen
abandoning their burning temple
where the obdurate slumped over altars
with bullet-hole Third Eyes oozing
gunpowder and pineal, black blood.
With blizzards choking the high passes
they huddled in the cliff caves
while trusting you to lead them through,
a 600-year-old boy,
who was coming from behind his back
and was going in the direction he faced.
The Chinese prowled behind like wolves
as snow squalls filled your tracks.
As weeks passed, peasants and monks
boiled their saddled bags and ate them,
drove yaks ahead to breach the snowdrifts
and then men when the beasts perished.
By a blue lake in a Himalayan valley
where only the yeti had ever stood upright
you meditated on the dharma path.
Rinpoche, I glimpsed you once
hailing a cab on Madison Avenue.
Where were you going?
Copyright Credit: John Balaban, "For Chögyam Trungpa" from Empires. Copyright © 2019 by John Balaban. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: Empires (Copper Canyon Press, 2019)