What is the magic
that picks me up by the scruff of the neck
when I open the pages of a book?
Meet me in Kathmandu.
I will arrive leading an elephant
I have liberated from her chains.
Twenty-six years, she lay on the pavement,
without hope.
Her eyes now gleam:
with relief, with awakening trust, with
-amazingly – kindness.
Although I am human,
like the beings who chained her,
she is willing to believe that
I mean her no harm.
Elephants forgive.
On a rooftop, above a monastery,
at three a.m.,
nuns are practicing kung fu.
Even the birds are not awake.
It is four hours until morning tea.
Below, monks’ rumbling mantras
grumble sonorously.
All is peaceful, conscious, awakened.
I have arrived along the Saffron Road
in the pages of a book,
where I live with delight
as the slow hours pass.
At the monastery,
the youngest nun is six years old.
Her parents brought her to the nuns
to gain good karma,
and also because
there is no money to feed
so many children.
She is nervous, watching the other nuns
to see what she is supposed to be doing.
In her bed at night,
I wonder if she remembers home,
cries silent tears,
feels unmoored,
unmothered.
I turn the page,
and now, so soon, it will be eventide
in the purple mountains,
smoke rising from the chimneys
and the cooking fires,
as amber light falls on stone walls,
and pilgrims make their weary way
homeward.
I must make my own way home.
Meet me in Kathmandu.
We will speak of the magic
of books that lift us up and away,
taking us on magic carpets
to the land of our dreams.
I wrote this poem some years ago when I was reading The Saffron Road, A Journey With Buddha’s Daughters, by Christine Toomey, who travelled the globe to tell the stories of Buddhist nuns. The book took me right into its pages, as books always do. My heart journeys to Tibet, to Nepal, to Africa....to so many places through the pages of wonderful books. This book a beautiful glimpse of a mysterious way of life.
I thought of it this morning at the library. I had to find this poem to remember the title of the book. I am going to read it again, as I often do with books I especially love. (So many books! So little time!)
The nuns doing kung fu reminded me of one of the sweetest things I have ever seen - a one hundred year old nun, here in Tofino, doing Qi Gong up at the Community Hall with the seniors' program. (I adore Qi Gong. This summer, I will be doing it weekly at the beach on Friday mornings. Yay!)
