Still Here

 

 

Right after the bitter, freezing winter of 1958,

Spring—long awaited, long prayed for—

Was stolen by an uninvited force.

The CCP came crashing in like a falling mountain,

Crushing lives, scattering families,

Leaving survival as the only choice.

 

A teenage boy, heart pounding like a trapped bird,

Surrendered everything he knew.

Staying was no longer living—

So, with only a flicker of hope

And a few trembling words,

He waved a final goodbye to his family,

Not knowing if he would ever see them again.

 

The path he took had no name,

And no one would willingly follow it.

Every step demanded a piece of life,

And a price of dreams.

He climbed and slipped, rose and bled

For months across the world’s highest range.

Then—like a whispered blessing—

A new world appeared, bright with music and laughter.

To him, it was nirvana, a miracle earned

After years of silent prayer.

 

But not all reached the other side.

Some vanished into white, unmerciful crevasses,

And only a few emerged, carrying wounds

Too deep for any doctor to see.

 

It was mid-summer in Kathmandu,

A city of temples and incense.

After weeks lost in pain and fever,

He finally surfaced back into consciousness—

Back into life—

Feeling again the weight and wonder of being alive.

 

Yet the journey was far from over.

Learning a new culture was another mountain,

A new language, the steepest climb of all.

Perhaps fate sits above logic, as elders say,

For, who would have imagined

A shepherd boy renting a tiny apartment in New York City?

 

The sky and the changing seasons

Were the only familiar things in this foreign world.

Still, fate softened, offering him a soulmate—

A woman who, like him,

Had once left everything behind.

With gestures, smiles, and patient silence,

They built a life together,

Leaning on neighbors when English failed,

Even just to understand the mail.

 

But the scars of 1959 still burn beneath their skin.

It chills them to see CCP leaders

Standing beside world leaders—

A reminder of the darkness they fled.

Even when they don’t know the politics,

Hope trembles inside them:

A longing to see family again,

Just once more.

 

A decade passed, and a new purpose arrived—

Their daughter.

She became their renewed strength,

Their reason to rise, to try, to learn.

Perhaps one day their English

Will be enough to share their story—

Their truth—

When she stands tall as a Tibetan American,

In her community, and on the world stage.

 

For her future, they drown their trauma.

For her dreams, they keep moving,

Though they still live without a place

To truly call home.

 

Still here, beneath a foreign moon.

Still here, holding onto the last thread of hope.

Still here—

Waiting for a brighter dawn.

 

- Dorjee Gyaltsen