Paper Leaves - Derge Monastery, Tibet
Snowball red buds bloom in bundled clumps
across the meadow, the women pull flowering
weeds, accustomed to uprooting. Strong hands vie
against strong-willed coils - ripping earth, the way
men with guns uprooted men in robes, and maroon
cloth disappeared in snow across mountain passes
or sank in marooned stains on glacial white. The women
smile, stripping roots into fiber, pounding pulp
into remains. Heated in butter churns, a tea mixture
pours onto muslin, dries in sheets. The monks
peel the paper to print a page on a long wood
tablet etched with words. Rollers creak over leaves
accompanied by the whispers of page counters.
Here lie stacks of written voices, ready to sound
in the minds of readers. A boy looks at a rock
carved with a mantra for mind protection -
through successive snows from melting glaciers,
the flowers still bloom, the scriptures stack
up in piles at the printing press, waiting,
waiting to divulge what's always been known.
Annie Bien
Posted over on Loch Raven Review
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