Existence --- a poem by Tashi

Existence…

It’s a funny thing

Isn’t it

If you really think about it

No Country Exists

We are on a round ball floating in space

there are land masses under us

diversity of species around us – plants, animals, insects, birds

in a place we call,

Our World

We stand on the ground

only gravity hold us down

and we gather in groups or tribes

all with different looks, languages, colours, shapes and sizes

We have names for things--

in English we call the round ball,

Earth

and we have drawn imaginary boundaries between places on Earth

We have been given or elected leaders to rule over the places

ones that our minds have chosen to believe in

Over the centuries those land masses, those borders, those leaders

have all changed

and yet at this moment we identify them by their current names

And we have drawn imaginary lines on maps

So we can call them our own

and so we often fight over them (especially the resources within)

Claiming that we (whoever ‘we’ are) own them

But really, if you think about it –

do we own anything?

We don’t even stay on this round ball for very long

Each one of us – eventually goes home

So when we say that such and such a place

has a right to exist

It is just so that our imagination

can accept it