Cambodian New Year at the Killing Fields
The children go holiday wild,Swarms of them drenching usWith holy water. Skin soakedWe fall off our bikes, flattenedBy their rabble-roused blessing.
At the entrance, pepsi competesWith coke, disco propagandaDances out of control. TeenageGuards wave us through, sellingTickets would spoil their party.
Inside it's a garden, well-keptTrails between the moundsFooling us they were designedTo please the eye. Until weRead how many killed in each.
Look, that tree, so graceful —Against which babies' headsWere bashed — saving bulletsFor more mature enemies.I check for red-handed stains
But they have long sinceDissolved into complicity.How to poison this branchIf it grows inside us all?No blessing can ever purge
A pathway out of this scourge
My brother cannot sleep
Barely thirteen months separate us,Brothers gangling teenage limbsIn the bedroom of our shared past.
You, the Olympic athlete, foreverRunning ahead of yourselfBut never first over the line.
The fitness I envied in you,Forty years later seems skeletalBeside my pudgy self-acceptance.
It's only on the phone you tell meHow you wake sweating fromPanic, how you wake
In that million dollar houseYour anger manages to maintain,Empty rooms on every floor.
Augustine confesses to Pelagius
Down the ages, what guilt I'll generate —Whole centuries of self-loathing.I'll rub your noses in it:All of us, absolutely rotten.
You're a fool, Pelagius. Preaching manCan be saved by leading a 'good life'.Our genitals upset that apple cart. Admit it —We're all powerless down there.
Grace is a gift, never deserved.Look at me: if it weren't for theAll-predestining Father's love,I'd still be burning in lust.
Thirty years as bishop chokes meWith Realpolitik. Pain pressesFrom all sides while the good GodPurifies with each thrust of the knife.
Make no mistake: I am a loving manBut the whip must be cracked each dayIf the faithful are to keep on their toes.It will all make sense in Paradise.
Your head's in the clouds, Pelagius,The 'good life' — nothing but a mirage.Sit in my cathedral for just one weekAnd your utopia would go up in smoke.
Dawn the proof
Half the sky is Himalaya.I rise before the sunOn guard duty for the world:To make sure it keeps in place,
That the earth's backboneSupports us for another day.Dorje Hakpa, Purbi Chyachu,Their names nodal points
Brushing against the stratosphereWhile we were still froth in pools.Far-flung peaks are the firstTo be tested by light.
Lower on the horizonThey are stroked by the sun's raysBefore my sentry point here.Dawn the magnifier,
The proof of global curve.Geography's vastnessWeighs anchor and sailsAcross the world's mind.
The peaks line up as a magic screenAlong which