A felt divinity

Kalden Rangdröl Dhatsenpa

 

in this mercurial world

my mind often takes the scenic route

 

a meandering stream appears

like spring, it comes and it goes

attention waning

like silver slivers

of light, its signal that spills like a wave

onto every wrinkle, a dream

you kiss, and forget the depraved

nights,

         there it comes again

that crystalline memory

splitting through the prism, our future

looms, its shadow cast large

upon our nervous system

Its waters discharged

through the storm

 

I struggle for words

all these threadlike roads to take

like gashes to sew

this scab of a path

cuts across the slope

but there we are keeping the wounds open

 

a sudden flash of light

and reason dissolves into wanting rhyme

i receive a message, though i’d prefer a call

from you. i take it

to mean something more

 

i saw what i saw. though

i reap what i sow

i hear what i want,

i felt, that coarse hope

reaching, through the static noise

i grasp at the strands

 

i thought i saw god

through my cracked phone

did the universe just speak or is it my own

desperate projections

in the mesh of my wires?

 

at the end of last summer

 

i felt divinity

like a fingerless weaver

tying an endless knot

 

with whatever cords i have

with whatever fleece i’ve got

 

everything must be connected

by the end of the fall

or else there would surely come

a crash into the market

a flood from the squalls

lightning strikes, upon the artificially tall

 

but the gales subside

and the wind dies

and you bring me down

from the heights, sailing

into the long grass, with our legs

our wires crossed, like stars

 

touching down,

I look for you

like a constellation

in the sky, like a kite

an animal behind the clouds

but it’s you again

your fingers, your eyes,

the rest of your body

above my own

hopes, allowed

to gently coast

down into your hand

a bridle made

from these mercurial strands

mu-thag

my rope.

 

 

Around you, I forget how to talk

 

I agree

your body is a temple,

and I might be a monk

inside, a place of worship

you bring me to silence

so easily, we bow

 

if fewer words from me

meant more from you

then I shall commit

to an unspoken vow.

 

the machine ascends

 

contrail like fleeting fence

over the grasslands,

leaves, roads, and rail

it cleaves a new mountain pass

“and these new EVs don’t need to breathe”

unlike, those infernal

combustion engines

 

a futurist fealty to speed and glass,

legalism paves the way “forward”

for chemicals to eternally last

a straight line is summoned.

de jure interpretations

by an ascendent class

the scholar bureaucrats

against a de facto mass

i mean the bards, the herders

the singers, and spinners

that knew curves

of the mountain, horses

and valley lovers, pax

no need for an atlas

so save your breath

no need to repeat your address

i recall your mound

the hills around our tent

the warmth I gave you in the cold

“do you remember the day we first became friends?”

oral traditions

what space do we reserve for you?

left decayed and dismembered.

the skin and bones of that spent vessel

 

their ivory columns, tarred and weathered

rusted iron trestles, a rail yard in december

blanketed in snow, a shorter fall than last year

this inclement weather, the mantra for a new century

 

we circumambulate

and those straight lines disappear

with each sundering

season, a turning tide recalls

ancestral reason

each time we circle back

a desire path emerges

 

between the grasses

the days grow longer,

let your blades grow dull

on this empire, cast a dry spell,

remind yourselves of impermanence

once the snow melts,

let the wild grasses take over,

await the blessed super blooms

once the flood passes

and buries bulldozers.

 

lest the machine speaks again

“let me rest”

 

this tender world

knows many mercies

that make like trees and fall

where no one might hear

so tend to the earth

so mend your roots

send rocks away

sow modest compassions

and trim your shame

against the silence,

kiss the forest, for the trees

can only sing

 

we are born into abundance

yet convinced we are destitute

there is so much

to love in this life

if your coffers are empty

if the void weighs heavy

if your memory wanes

eclipsed

by a future imperial

remind them

erosion reigns

over material

like silver, moons

over the tide

that smooths sand

that tries and tries

to break things down, or to let it destroy

to give them a hand

or to providence, devoid.

 

Kalden Rangdröl Dhatsenpa (སྐལ་ལྡན་རང་གྲོལ་མདའ་ཚན་པ།) is the eldest son of Pema Yangchen Khangsar Bhungdong Nupe and the late drokpa essayist and poet Gonpo Tsering Dhatsenpa in Dharamsala, India. He is a member of the editorial board at Canadian Dimension, a political magazine established in 1963. He ran twice as a federal candidate in Canadian elections. He has been published in The Breach, Canadian Dimension, and Commo Mag. Kalden is a writer and photographer based in Tiohtià:ke /Mooniyang / Montréal.