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26th january 2005Good to see that Gary Snyder has a new book of poems out, Danger on Peaks, where he writes about the post 9-11 world. This fragment on the Bamiyan Buddhas: not even
under mortar fire do they flinch; the Buddhas of Bamiyan Take refuge in the dust. reminded me a little of Kipling's Song of the Galley Slaves: we shall run out of the port-holes as the water
runs along the oar-blade, and though you tell the others to row after us you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up the winds in the belly of the sail
and I see that the destruction of the Buddhas by the Taliban is almost a joke made by a zen master: the Buddhas are still there, of course. Although they were never there at all.
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