Tea With Yak Milk
Morning not yet lit. Men shout in the dark
aware of what’s coming. Above the tree
line, you can’t burn the dead. No wood.
A box of matches trades for one live sheep.
A holy man
arrives, looking at nobody, especially
not two foreigners with cameras. He
knows what’s going to take place
on that huge bald rock rounded
through ages
has no words for us, strangers, whose
language he distrusts, whose eyes
he can’t comprehend. Just a cold
morning and a small group of men
except me
and maybe the body they carefully place
on bare rock, all waiting for the birds to fly
in from other mountains, over valleys where
for a thousand years nobody has registered
a single footprint.
Below in the city, women stretch their tongues
out at me, their greeting. Silver tongues sliver
in and out between teeth and lips. Their
fingers touching my soft hair get caught
like rough silk
against skin. In the market, I buy
woven colorful bands and braid them
into my hair their way. At the Jokhang
temple we’re welcome, shown
bullet holes
from Chinese soldiers. We’re asked to photograph
treasures soon stolen, on display in Peking.
We can see every room, except some I can’t
enter since I’m a woman, and some behind
walls hiding priceless
statues and manuscripts being repaired
after such warfare. Women touch my blouse,
my jeans, my feet. Feet are necessary to live
in mountains. Mine so narrow, bony, the women
shake their heads.
Yet I made it up here into the mountains, vultures
gathering. A very old shepherd hands me a chipped
ceramic cup with strong hot tea mixed with salt
and yak milk. I don’t mind the salt. The milk, I know
makes me sick
but I drink the full cup and bow in gratitude.
The undertaker lifts a round bolder, chants
toward heaven before he crushes the skull.
Vultures careen. Bend. Swoop. Scream.