The rain is pouring
Our hearts are leaking
Your children are dripping
With longing
Memories collecting around the feet of your warriors like puddles.
Some of us
Meeting your face
Only on screens, in dreams
But the weight of your hand has reached through time
Touched my heart
And made me Mukpo.
The same hands that held my newly born husband
And named him Fudo.
You discovered elegance in this rock
of a nearly island province
you saw the basic goodness
Of these people.
My people.
More clearly than I ever did.
I grew up wanting to leave,
thinking life would be much more interesting somewhere else…but you saw something different.
Now we see signs of you everywhere.
From the Highlands, the rural landscapes, and the city buildings,
all adorned with the Great Eastern Sun,
proclaiming Shambhala
Urging us never to give up.
May we return to you again and again
through all our lives
Like the waves of the Bay of Fundy
return to shore.
On the 31st Parinirvana
But the weight of your hand has reached through time, touched my heart and made me Mukpo.