Megan Eaves-Egenes

lean back, crane, gape. 15 mi, up up up unaffected visages, strings of browned beads swirling orange fabric hewn in rock before the sun rose on this time. did those monks know, care, we’d come – build catwalks and stairwells and handrails windhowl through wire mesh – for glimpses into dark caves, where after millennia, some painted faces waited. you can…

flying apsaras of mogao circling around sakyamuni with music, dune-curved dances scarves floating round their waists never touching fairy skin-to-silk, a lotus flower, legs crossed, sublime. i get lost in the language sinuous like sand, smooth, as if water were cast in time. the sun crests hot and dry through dust and smoke from nearby…

  the summer river wends down through the arid mountains of gannan prefecture xia he, it is called. when april snows fall gracefully over these crags the monks are pure scarlet drops on that white blanket. mud walls, scooped roofs of amber tile, prayer flags swaying like my devotion to this, or anything at all.…