Wood for Dorje Tshering

-Raaja Bhasin

All carried

A piece of wood

For Dorje Tshering

 

 

Some carried dried loppings

Others the trunk

Of a middling cedar;

In her tiny hands,

Dolma held sprigs

Of scented juniper

 

Moving up the hill

The entire village

Carried wood

For Dorje Tshering

 

For fingers,

Sacred doob-grass

Was woven into rings

 

The gong was struck

It shook

The bare mountain

 

Dorje Tshering

Never left his remote highland home

But regardless, something

Came for him

 

And the village used up

All its wood

For Dorje Tshering.