Absconders

"While many Westerners have regarded Tibet as the mysterious hidden sanctuary, Tibetans have looked elsewhere for such a place."

[Edwin Bernbaum, The Way to Shambala]

Walls of tears

Confined our lives and dignity

Hushed in fear

The peaceful days are gone

As memories

Invasion kept us prisoners

Nails of scorn

Were driven through those masks

That made us strangers

Their anger kept us prisoners

Doors of stone'

Concealing truth for years

Silently

Days of fear

Are carving paths for us to take

Mournful years

Could never wilt our hopes

In freedom's sake

Escaping from this misery

Darkness shall unfurl its wings

And give us all the answers

Each footstep made with bravery

Dreadful chains

Are breaking from our feet

Free we'll be

In time,

One's fate finds peaceful grounds

In sight,

One's eye triggers and shoots

In pain,

One's fate finds crimson grounds

In vain,

One' eye captured the truth

Absconders

[...in the memory of Kelsang Namtso]

["On September 30th, 2006, climbers preparing to summit Cho Oyu, a mountain nineteen miles east of Mount Everest, watched in horror as border guards fired at a group of Tibetans fleeing to India via Nepal. Kelsang Namtso, a seventeen year-old Tibetan nun, was killed in the assault."]

[Jonathan Green, Murder in the High Himalaya]