Nineteen Fifty-nine
Lhasa, the top of the world
Tibet, a country of peace
monks, nuns, lamas, nomads;
the gentle people of Tibet
their country occupied nine years
by the Peoples’ Liberation Army of China:
rapes, re-education,
torture, interrogation, thramzing;
slave labour, humiliation,
degradation, chaos, crime;
Tibetan land—redistributed;
Han Chinese— moved in; pawns themselves.
Tibetans second-class citizens in their own country:
An anti-communist occupation uprising ensues.
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We bopped in bobby sox on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand
...while you were enduring the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution...
And what you called Tibet’s “deepest hell,”
We rocked around the clock with Bill Halley & the Comets
...while Buddhist sacred texts
were used as toilet paper,
while you were woken
in the middle of the night,
slapped and kicked by guards,
while you endured the sick cold of
leg irons in Tibetan winters,
the blisters on your shins,
the chafe and cruel pain.
And all over the planet
streams still
danced downhill
over river-rounded rocks
We gorged on years of Christmas groaning boards, our tables laden with turkey and stuffing, vegetables, mashed and roasted potatoes, gravy, cranberry jelly, and four desserts,
... while you used your coveted spoon
on the bowl of watery soup
you were fed only twice a day;
…while you lay bruised and bleeding
on the flat bare board that was your bed...
And the ocean tides
rolled over
undulating kelp beds,
the waves
talking the rocks
as they hit the shore
We swooned over Elvis Presley,
jived in crinolines
and penny loafers
...while you were imprisoned
and tortured for thirty-three years:
hand cuffs,
thumb cuffs,
serrated knives,
hooked knives,
electric cattle prods,
Electric shock guns (70,000 volts);
scalding tea emptied on your
arm by sadist guards.
And all the while
the tides
went in and out
relentlessly
while we lived
our tiny lives
and you
endured yours
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Richard Nixon & Nikita Kruschev have their famous “kitchen debate.”
Mao Zedong declares himself China’s “Great Helmsman.”
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro take over Cuba. Charles De Gaulle is president in France.
Vatican II is announced.
Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is released, the 16th animated film ever.
Two monkeys return from space. Canadian Government cancels the CF105 Arrow program.
Hawaii becomes the 50th U.S. state.
First picture of Earth from space.
The brand new St. Lawrence Seaway opens.
First Americans are killed in action in Vietnam.
Bonanza and The Twilight Zone begin. Ben-Hur, the first “Technicolor” movie opens.
First known HIV death (in the Congo).
The Caspian Tiger goes extinct in Iran.
Pantyhose is introduced.
Magic Johnson, Kevin Spacey, and the Barbie Doll are born; Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper died. My parents got divorced.
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Woodstock: we bought bangles and bracelets, sang about freedom, gave the Fish Cheer,
felt free, and unbound
...while you were tied
with your hands
behind your back,
and suspended
from the ceiling;
interrogated
I went to Cape Breton;
A new sun rose
over the Rawdin Hills
and the Moon shone down
on the sea, slicing
a silver path through
modest waves.
Rain fell on the misty lakes
of Bras D’Or.
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Woodstock. The Beatles give their last public performance. The final episode of Star Trek the original series. First Gap store opens. The Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight. UNIX is invented.
John Lennon records Give Peace a Chance. He does a Bed-In in Montreal. In Prague’s Wenceslas Square, a student, Jan Palach, sets himself on fire to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. In the same year, Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon – the Mai Lai Massacre – Chappaquiddick -- the Chicago 8 trial. The first Battlestar Galactica series concludes.
Diddy is born and Ho Chi Minh dies.
Sharon Tate is murdered and Dwight Eisenhower and an era pass away.
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