If we are to consider suffering we must follow
the upheaval of a thought: a papaya is lost to raindrops;
a house catches fire; a body snaps as a matchstick or a leer;
a crowd combs the beach for diamonds washed
to shore from a pirate’s loot. We return to
the same questions for if we remember sickness,
suffering, old age, death, then we must understand.
Wind collapses the slender spine of an umbrella.
Everything held precious, conforms.
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa is the author of three collections of poetry: My rice tastes like the lake, In the Absent Everyday and Rules of the House (all from Apogee Press, Berkeley). My rice tastes like the lake was a finalist for the Northern California Independent Bookseller’s Book of the Year Award for 2012. Dhompa's first non-fiction book, A Home in Tibet, was published by Penguin India in 2013. She teaches creative writing and is pursuing a PhD degree in Literature at the University of California in Santa Cruz.
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