Bagan

Steeples.

Two thousand.

Eyes.

Sixteen thousand, all-knowing, all looking out to each corner of the earth.

And then comes the most crucial guest of all. Making his appearance and exit once. Flowing only in one direction, never stopping, never starting. The infinite and perpetual motion of the Sun.

"I followed you," I said

"I followed you, too." the Sun spoke through my eyes.

"It seems I've been chasing you all my life," I whispered back and I folded my legs like a lotus.

The red brick beneath me pushed back on my body forcing my spine straight. Like the Sun and the Earth were calling me to attention, so not to miss what I chased.

I chased the Sun and the Earth held me grounded as if every moment of everyday lead to this one point. This one place.

You are a new kind of orange, a perfect sphere in the violet sky. I sit here on the top of a stupa looking westward to the jungle covered mountains and here I am quiet again. Absent of thought but full of vision.

You slowly slid behind a grassy mountain peak. So slow that maybe it was on purpose this time. Unlike all the times before, when I came looking for you, but you had already disappeared.

This is where I finally caught up with you, dear Sun, here in Bagan.

Memories of Myanmar

By Trishanna Persaud