A friend sent this over email. I am sure Tenzin Tsundue does not mind my putting the poem up on these pages. If anyone tells me he does I will remove it. After all, I guess, the word should go out, copyrighted or not. Tenzin Tsundue, is the young man who climbed the Bangalore IISC tower and raised the Free Tibet flag five years ago, when the Chinese Premier was visiting Bangalore.
A Personal Reconnaissance
From Ladakh
Tibet is just a gaze away.
They said:
from that black knoll
at Dumtse it’s Tibet.
For the first time, I saw
my country Tibet.
In a hurried hidden trip
I was there at the mound.
I sniffed the soil,
scratched the ground,
listened to the dry wind
and the wild old cranes.
I didn’t see the border,
I swear there wasn’t anything
different, there.
I didn’t know
if I was there or here.
I didn’t know
if I was here or there.
They say the kyang
come here every winter.
They say the kyang
go there every summer.
(Kyang-wild ass found in herds in Changthang (northern plains) of Tibet and Ladakh)
from ‘Kora’ stories and poems. By Tenzin Tsundue