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A Little Fear: Two Poems by Chime Lama

In a guest laden living room to the side in a corner, / I tried to wear a coat like skin, // And in that moment, that precise moment, / I’m asked, “Are you Tibetan?”

Poetry | Poetry Tuesday, poetry
November 26, 2019

Tibetan-American Anxieties: Wanting Sounds in a Barren Throat

Lhabab Duchen1 brought the red robed gathering,
And with smiles, I welcomed them silently.

Behind my teeth squirmed an orphan tongue,
Abandoned by its mother long ago.

With the awe of a mute, I watched them unpack
The silnyen2, the rolmo3, the gyaling4.

Back then I couldn’t even read the pecha5
To fill my empty lips with sound.

I escaped from the shrine to the heat of the kitchen –
Scurrying aunts and silverware trays.

Ama la6, I know I have to serve the tea. Please don’t scold me;
My identity is unstable.

In a guest laden living room to the side in a corner,
I tried to wear a coat like skin,

And in that moment, that precise moment, I’m asked,
“Are you Tibetan?”

Crushed to bits by a gravitational vortex,
My heart slammed through the floor and the septic.

Hiding in the bathroom to “fix my hair.”
Mirror, show me a yak not an eagle.

In the frigid Snow Land in a steaming tent,
A nomad family drinks thukpa7 together.

Their brilliant smiles gleam in my eyes,
An outsider looking in on their happiness.



1  Festival of the Buddha’s Descent from Heaven
2  Tibetan cymbals played for peaceful ritual practices
3  Tibetan cymbals played for wrathful ritual practices
4  Tibetan woodwind instrument used in ritual practices
5  Tibetan scripture
6  Eng. Respected Mother
7  Tibetan noodle soup

 

A Little Fear

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