Buledi Temple in Summer of 2014

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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.
Location: Old Bagan, Republic of the Union of Myanmar

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