Genghis Khan, the warlord from Mongolia who was originally known to his buddies as Temujin, did not live to a great age. He was born in perhaps 1162 and died in 1227. If my pocket calculator can be trusted, then, he died when he was about 65 years of age.

The Genghis of our poem is an older man, someone who has lived well beyond his years of conques. Has lived into, amongst other things, the years of his blindness.

This GENGHIS LOTUS death poem is part of the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online. The Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection is hosted at two locations, genghislotus.com and zenvirus.com/genghis-lotus/. Webmaster for both sites is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness.

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GENGHIS LOTUS

Genghis in his lotus mode
Contemplated the sushi of his thoughts.
Karmic nirvana:
Acceptance.
The circulation of his memories appeases
Even his darkness.
Momentarily,
He is the silence of the ringing bell.
Forgetting, he imagines
His eyes can see the billion lapiz blue,
The billion blues of the skies that he remembers.
For a moment,
He is complete:
He is Lord Lotus.
An old man now,
At peace with the iron poetic.
Remembering
The horselords and the sunken snows.
Remembering, also,
The smile of the girl who died.
Remembering that,
He imagines,
For a moment,
A world without cancer,
A world in which stones
Are no longer condemned to blindness.
Then the mood is broken.
He speaks, and says,
"I'm ready."
Of all the deaths he captured,
He owns but just the one,
And yet this one, this surcease,
Single,
Will be sufficient.

Copyright © 2006 Hugh Cook
May be photocopied for classroom use

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