Foot and Fire

Atop any temple in Old Bagan, I can easily spot you because you are the gigantic one among the silent sacred standing brick stones. Dhammayan, as you are popularly called,  is your being the biggest a blessing by chance?”  Your red bricks were layered  by the subjects of King Narathu who ordered to brick up your interior  so no one can enter you, and perhaps,  so no one can understand his intentions. One more, you were patterned  to the prettiest temple of Ananda -- the most welcoming of all temples -- so why close you up inside  and open only the four porches  and the vast corridors  to your faithful Buddhists  and this visitor? I know the reasons of your being the biggest  and your being secretive inside died with your king  who was said to have died in assassination, the very means he used to seize the power  from his father and elder brother.  Perhaps your g...

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 ...