Versions of Shangri-La

Me and the other mythomaniacs,

Reeling from the altitude sickness of words…

There has to be some force in the atom

To midwife me a second birth.

Where the maps end, the journey begins.


The only evidence is in my heart.

The absence of desire.

I am walking,taking step after step,

Towards the neither-here-nor-there,

Certain never to arrive.


My goal is that hidden valley

Where men live young and free forever,

Miraculous plants and animals thrive,

And all drink wisdom from the streams.

A place inaccessible to all but the pure in heart,

Unrevealed until the propitious hour.


In this age of Kali, so far from God,

Under the tyranny of unrighteous rulers,

Avaricious, cruel and corrupt,

When brother is set against brother,

And man against the earth,

I look to the Himalayan mountains,

For exhilaration and hope.

Seven peaks are my constellation:

Rakaposhi,Kailash,Kangchenjunga,

Chomolhari,Kawakarpo and Jambeyang.

And Chomolungma.


The light mulling over the mountains and forests,

The wind stalking the lakes of Yading;

Smell of pine,larch and cypress,

And the mind’s blue glaciers, advancing and retreating…

Hunters climb to the alpine grasslands in spring

To dig up the caterpillar fungus

That remedies all ills.

The three white bodhisattvas hold me in their gaze,

And autumn trees glow red, yellow and green,

Prayer scarves of fog swathe the monastery,

Suspended on time’s edge,

And placid yaks graze in scarlet meadows

Where golden barley undulates in the breeze.

Cold lucent water cupped in my hands,

All the energy,wisdom and compassion in the cosmos

Burns in your molecules,and feeds me…

My eyes are full of tears,

The eyes of the thirteenth Dalai Lama.