Darjeeling

First published in 1993 after my first visit there. Latest visit a month ago.

Silver beams illuminate the landscape
and increase with constancy around the hills
until they blind you into rapturous exhilaration
for the mountain far above all others
so serenely highlighted in heavenly and perfect majesty
by the enchanting morning glory rising from the sun;
and in its shadow, this small village
like a child born from this paradise of beauty
living almost only from the beautious charm of Kanjenjunga,
so benevolently generous from this life-giving magic,
that immediately she naturally must become the Queen of Hills.
Thou art the Emperor and majesty, o Kanjenjunga,
but your child Darjeeling mirrors this supremacy
and grows into the most desirable of queens
by stealing irretrievably your heart
and leaving, as you have to leave her,
a nostalgia to ache for life
unless you constantly return.