The passion and devotion
Of its practitioners
Equaled in vibrancy
By the colour palette
Of its expression
The many-headed serpents
Protect the temple
Protect its people
Protect Buddha and Buddhism
To Tibet
In the heart of Beijing
It’s so decreed
By The Party
The friends we can make
Of broken friends
Surprise and delight
Like a lover
Or a mentor
First, a tangent.
Chinese characters are beautiful things. The more interesting ones often contain characters within characters, known as ‘radicals’. So any character containing the character for water is inflected with the sense of liquid, and any character containing the roof radical is inflected with the sense of shelter/safety, or lack of it.
Like the sun, shrouded
Seeking the balcony
Like the little Buddha
An outline in the shadows
I no longer have the energy for hate. It brings me no pleasure, no relief, only tension, pain, anger.
It’s not because I’ve been put there.
Outside is a place I have chosen.
And yet, I peer inside,
Longing to be in there.