The Fire Below

Holly Gayley

the fire in the belly

power that girdles and corsets

once bound into service

can I write from my belly?

            let its heat rise to my heart

                         and spread my arms into wings

what if it reached my throat

            unlocked the gate

                         what comes out then

blood, a scream

            or something sweet—

                         blood is sweet

what if it reached the crown of my head

            cleared the fog of hesitation

                         do I dare unleash this power

is this what brings down kingdoms

            breaks open pandora’s box

                         the mamos wreaking havoc

chaos disrupting

fire burning

heat melting

what if fire brings the rains

            and rain feeds the fire

                         an empowerment within

what if opposites join

            at the heart

                         and the fighting stops

the Buddha emitted fire and water

            at the same time—

                         a miracle they said

Holly Gayley, Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, is a scholar and translator of contemporary Buddhist literature in Tibet and Himalaya. Her research areas include gender and sexuality in Buddhist tantra, literature by and about Tibetan and Himalayan women, ethical reform in contemporary Tibet, and theorizing translation, both literary and cultural, in the transmission of Buddhist teachings to North America. Gayley is author of Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet (2016), translator of Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of the Buddhist Visionaries Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo (2019), and editor of Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for the Twenty-First Century (2021).