TSERING WANGMO DHOMPA ~

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa’s parents fled Tibet in 1959. Raised by her mother in Tibetan communities in Dharamsala, India, and Kathmandu, Nepal, Tsering earned a BA and an MA from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi, an MA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University. 

A friend of Longhouse, we published one of Tsering's earliest booklet of poems.

Bardo 
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa




A hundred and one butter lamps are offered to my uncle who
is no more.

Distraction proves fatal in death. A curtain of butter imprints
in air.

After the burning of bones, ashes are sent on pilgrimage. You are
dead, go into life, we pray. My uncle was a man given to giggles
in solemn moments.

Memory springs like crocuses in bloom. Self conscious and
precise.

Without blurring the cornea, details are resuscitated. Dried yak
meat between teeth. Semblance of what is.

Do not be distracted, Uncle who is no more.

He does not see his reflection in the river. The arching of speech
over  s as he is becoming.

Curvature of spine as it cracked on a misty morning. A shadow
evades the wall.

You are no more, Uncle who is no more.

Every seven days he must relive his moment of expiration.
The living pray frequently amid burning juniper.

Communication efforts require the right initiative.

Somewhere along the line matters of motion and rest are resolved.

Crows pick the last offerings. You are someone else, uncle no
more.


______________________

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
from Rules of the House  2003
Apogee Press

http://14hills.net/node/108



Books ~

    A Home in Tibet, Penquin India, Delhi 2013
    My Rice Tastes Like the Lake, Apogee Press, Berkeley 2011
    In the Absent Everyday, Apogee Press, Berkeley 2005
    Rules of the House, Apogee Press, Berkeley 2002
    Recurring Gestures, Tangram Press,
    In Writing the Names, A.bacus, 2000