Requiem For A Princess Murdered By Her Gardener Poem by Brian Taylor

Blondin walks the tightrope
over Niagara,
forwards, backwards,
blindfolded, on a bicycle,
to distant applause
among crashing waters.

Ten times, twenty, fifty….

One step missed
answers the first step taken
onto the swaying rope.

Then, everything is,
as it has always been;
jagged rocks and thundering waters.

Into the silence
where yesterday's applause
cannot reach.

Those who inherit
the lands of the lotus eaters
are not yesterday's children.
The path to the top
of the Golden Mountain
is the labour
of many hands and feet.

They could not count the sands of the Ganges.
How would we reckon the length of a kalpa?
Or the work of hands?
Or the pairs of sandals
worn through to the dust
on such a journey?