Buledi Temple in Summer of 2014

I cannot content myself

in admiring you

from afar

and down here.

You are speaking to me

and I have to listen.

I have to leave my sandals

as I leave my inhibitions behind.

With my bare feet and bare hands

and open mind, I have to climb

your steep and rail-less beauty.

Over a millenium ago,

your still beauty was built

with both red bricks

and Buddhist foundations:

these are enough to captivate me.

(I do not know your story:

scholars consider you a minor one

and I content myself in approaching you

with complete ignorance

so I can surrender to your beauty.)

So I almost reached your stuppa

and breathed in your stillness.

Sitting on that spot atop you,

I can see Dhammayangyi,

Ananda, Htilominlo, and Sulamani

all set against Bagan's vast reddish-yellow dessert soils

dotted with sporadic green heads.

As my eyes revel to your major fellows,

I am illuminated by Old Bagan's waking sun

which slowly grows into a golden one

that is surreptitiously warming

my contemplative

creative

self.

Copyright March 2014

Gerlie M. Uy

This poem commemorates my travel to Myanmar last year.

Please check my previous entry on Buledi which is spelled as Bule Thi.

and on other temples of Myanmar as well.