Koh-I-Babu
Grandfather Mountain
casts its gentle shadow
over everything.
Both man and stone
his children.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan
guard the valley
as they have done
for 14 centuries
gazing
through time
beyond
into eternity.
But nothing
lasts for ever
not even
eternity.
I laugh to find
there is a relic
of the finger
of the Buddha
hastily scraped out of
his funeral pyre
this human need
to hold all that is
passing.
This of all faiths
pointing out
the impermanence of things
clinging to
the Buddha’s finger.
Now the kohl-eyed
Taliban
reduce the giant guardians
to nothing
giving the world’s press
a front seat
as eternity
is destroyed.
The statues
coming alive
in their very death
burning into
men’s minds
living for ever
in their destruction.
Now the Buddha’s burning finger
points out
that nothing
lasts forever.
Dónall Dempsey
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-buddhas-of-bamiyan/