I have known eons among celestials
The way you have known a second.
I have stretched from the rains of Draco
To the banks of the dreaming Mekong.

I was there when a son of the Shakya
Flowered into bright Tathagata,
Breaking the cycles of Samsara.

I watched my wisest daughter journey
To your young lands of grapes and olives.
You took her beautiful head and claimed her “monster,”
Filling your proud bowels with wine and honey.

In the primeval aeries of sacred Himmapan,
Feathered Kinnaly devote their lives to song and dance
Celebrating the beauty of the timeless and the finite,
What might soar, and what might remember.
What might love, and what might wonder.
On your modest sea, you plug your ignorant ears,
Proclaiming them foul screechers reeking of carrion.

Arriving on your shores to address these matters,
You scream in terror, summoning saints and swords,
Dismissing me some rankless worm of fetid breath.

Back home, the King of the Kirin rolls his sagacious eyes
As you dream of your pale virgins and bestial unicorns.

I would teach you of eternity and the laughter of karma,
But you’d likely just mistake it for some horrid inferno.

© 2016 by Bryan Thao Worra