Khyongla passed away at the age of 100
Thirty years after we met.
He was one of the great Lamas,
Taken out of a refugee camp,
If I remember correctly,
By the Rockefeller Foundation
And brought to the West
As one of the scholar saints of Tibet.
He went to New York and got a job
As a stock clerk in Altman’s,
And lived in a tiny one room
Back walk-up on 36th and 3rd
With an ailanthus tree
And a fire escape out the window.
He had an instinct for the ordinary,
Like the old Egyptian verse,

Never be proud of what you know
For the limits of one’s skill
Are never reached.
Consult the ignorant as much as the wise.
Wise speech is more precious than emerald
And yet it may be found
Among maids at the grindstone.

As I think of him I think, “What larks!”
I remember once in the back
Of a packed jumbo jet
That shook so violently in a storm
That a bottle of vodka above our heads
Shattered and came streaming down,
Holding Khyongla’s hand,
And we just laughed,

From this nettle danger
I pluck this flower safety