Where are you now,
with your palms together,
bowing,
your dark red robes
wrapping the wisdom
of a thousand years,
white knife peaks,
and over six thousand
monasteries?

Your home not your home
and yet your home always,
you wander,
you meditate,
you chant and pray;
you teach, you love,
or you stay
and must keep quiet.

Yet prayer flags still blow
in high Tibetan air,
prayer flags still blow
in the deep dark-eyed hearts
of your people.
There are places
the intruders,
the violators
cannot reach–
places alive with
the smiles and tears
of your lost land.

Red robed ones
with your calm eyes
upon the world,
you who pay homage
to the consciousness
in all things,
you who see far beyond
appearances:
you know past time,
you love past duality,
and yet you cry too.

The mountains of Tibet,
the vast plateaus and
green valleys,
the sky lakes and blue rivers,
the sons and daughters
of this sacred land
know and wait for you,
and for their time
within space and beyond
to be free.