15 APRIL 1992
by
Ko
Un
15 April 1992
I stayed home
all day.
Friends came,
friends went.
Afterwards
I there was a storm.
In
Lhassa, Tibet, a blind lama died.
16 APRIL 1992
I stayed home
all day.
No one came.
The body of
the Tibetan lama was moved to a hill.
A few dozen
eagles gathered
from among
all the starving eagles of India, of Asia,
and began
pecking at the sacred corpse.
17 APRIL 1992
stayed home
all day, again.
I read an
encyclopedia.
All I had
read I forgot at once.
Only the Tibetan
lama's bare bones were left.
Empty nirvana,
indeed !
18 APRIL 1992
I stayed home
all day, again.
Lo and behold,
the dead lama
had left a son, born in secret.
In deepest
night, he collected the lama's remains.
After sunrise,
he made two necklaces with the bones.
One he kept.
The other
he decided to sell to American poet Allen Ginsberg.
So now nirvana
links Lhassa and New York !
translated by Brother Anthony of Taize, Prof. Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach.