Tashi Delek!

Though in a borrowed garden
you grow, grow well my sister.

This Losar
when you attend your Morning Mass,
say an extra prayer
that the next Losar
we can celebrate back in Lhasa.

When you attend your convent classes
learn an extra lesson
that you can teach children back in Tibet.

Last year
on our happy Losar,
I had an IDLI-SAMBAR breakfast
and wrote my BA final exams.
My IDLIS wouldn’t stand
on my toothed steely forks,
but I wrote my exams well.

Though in a borrowed garden
you grow, grow well my sister.

Send you roots
through the bricks,
stones, tiles and sand.
Spread your branches wide
and rise
above the hedges high.

Tashi Delek!