Himalayan Meditation

I will die in Tibet, under the sky,
On a day when the horizon doesn’t cease,
A day like the days of my childhood,
A day sweet smothered briskness,
And the sky will be empty – crisp, calm and cold,
Pure emptiness broken only by the clean steam of my corpse
And the breath of the living Buddhas rejoicing my death,
While the wind separates them, empties my body of soul,
The monks cradle their mala beads and pray,
The young, solemnly old and silent in their wool crimson robes.

I think it will be on a Monday like today,
Except that the sky will be blue, the ice will be gone
And clouds that today turned the world to grey;
And I think it will be Monday because today,
When I woke up and looked outside,
Never before had anything seemed so empty and lonely,
My life, the streets, the lonely mattress, the grey Monday;
And my books, thrust under the coffee table
Seemed to glare, disgruntled and questioning,
And my shoes remained unlaced, forlorn – and my alarm just slept.

The Dalai Lama died once. One Monday the sky was clear,
It spread across the horizon; it capped the rocky Himalayas,
The Monks appeared, dressed in red as always, so many,
Praying with robes draped loosely over bare chest, in spite of the cold morning,
And after a while the Bodhisattvas with their beads
Leave the village with me through the gate
And five of them lay me on the frozen dead ground
To chant, lift jagged, irregular stones, the hearts of mountains.

The young blanket my body so I can still see the sky,
The old, gravely young and silent in their thick scarlet robes.