Phugtal

Imagine waking to so much sky,
the river reduced

to a thread of light.
Couldn’t wind just knock

this monastery off the mountain,
send it tumbling

like a wasp’s nest
through a thousand feet

of air? Khushal says it’s prayer
that keeps it clinging

to the rock face
despite the pull of gravity.

He says this place
has the power to alter lives

and on these terraces
flush with the drop

all thing seem possible,
even the high path

the guide books warn against,
strewn with scree

and shifting
as the course of marriage.