BY JAN HAAG
TIBETAN CHRONICLE
"At the Sakya
monastery...a large chhorten close to the main temple contained the entire
collection
of Buddhist scriptures in Uighur, probably lodged there when
no one was left who could read it."
Tucci,
TIBET
When no one is left who reads them,
books
from the human world, where will
the copies be kept? Like
shiny
spirals of magnetic tape, when
no recorders remain, who will
know
they contain wisdom from a race
blown to bits by its
mind, flung to
the winds with skilled hands. No chhorten
to contain
them--when the hewn stones
and the bricks of libraries
have
drifted fine as powder, silent
as ash to an unconscious
earth,
where will the sacred leaves be found?
Where will the fine
cedilla's flick,
the i's dot, the tail of a q,
the cross of a t, where
will the
intricate rules of a Sanskrit
grammar reside when no
chhortens
remain, bulbous, upright, tuned to
broadcast beyond
indifferent skies?
Copyright © 2000 through 2015 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jjhaag@gmail.com
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