ROAD BUILDING WORK

they have been given sunglasses
anti-glare
at eighteen thousand feet
burlap feet work on tarred ice
iced tar

yaks pasture
up to seventeen thousand

in the temple courtyard
sunflowers are high enough to
touch the prayer-wheels
of the sun

wooly goat climb
high crevasses
without sunglasses

BEAST OF BURDEN

rock
growls

full moon
brown wind
in the night makes

the blue white
lake-less

stone less
moonless
ice free

HIGH HIMALAYAN WOMAN

ice
all around
the wind sounds like
woman
my lover sees
blue sea frozen
dark in lights
mascara on a dark lake
people alight
ruffle by
we drink on
a stationery boat of poetry
around flotsam
we left behind

before I inundate
your bathtub with flowers
and you mock
my withered ankles
and knobby knees
I will jump
to catch a spark
and leave it sputtering
in your hands
your lap

none of us remember
such reincarnated
meadows of daffodils

HIMALAYAN STREAM AT DAWN

a tilted plank
steps up
to exuberant water on stone
catches sunlight
blue and white

a small orange-black
bird
bends knees to
show off
but does not fly
yet

from behind stone
water comes eager
to water beyond stone

lit up
oases of berries
catch a fledgling sun

***

a wind picks up
the bee abandons fallen apricot
quiet water
in the apples
in poplar
grey rock
and grass for yak

***

let me fall free
and meditate to
the well defined bee

LAKE BEAUTIFUL ALOOF

this berry twig
cracks
with a pistol sound
into the river
beneath peaks
craggy yellow light
reaches a late sky

monks sip
at water
above brackish pebbles
and breathe hard at this lake
made in mocking mountains

in ice
above blue

our camp
all ramped up
all glorious
all for show

this night we will vacillate
between madness and meditation
the moon will rise and set
and the brook will
insanely gurgle
even when it is a matter
of life and death

so that I can pray
lakeside
into tomorrow’s risen sun