Dharamsala

In Dharamsala, I stayed at the
Rising Horizon guest house,
where I met a girl from Belfast,
a boy from Dublin, and shared a room
with an Irish guy from New Zealand.
Every evening, we sat on the balcony,
watched eagles soar over the valley,
then when it was dark, drank Indian beer, or rum,
and smoked cheap cigarettes out of squashed packages.
Dervla took me to the Tibetan
Children's Village, where we spent a day,
surrounded by smiling, happy children,
who piled onto our laps as soon as we sat down.
Mike spent long days in the
library at the Dalai Lama's palace,
and Barry trecked about, and walked me up
to the Hindu temple by the waterfall.
I set out alone one day, against local advice,
and walked high up into the foothills,
braving bandits and tigers,
but nothing befell me. At midday,
I sat on a rock, staring out over the plains,
with the vast mountains towering behind me.
"I can see clearly now" I thought, and,
just as the song says, the pain was gone.

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