A poem from our friend Gary Margolis, Executive Director Emeritus of College Mental Health Services, looking back at the 2012 visit of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

It So Happened

the Dalai Lama was stepping
from his limousine.
And I happened to be
there. As you happen

to be here. And he was
as happy as a September
bee farming a field
of goldenrod. His
Holiness reaching out

to my hand. Which could
be yours. Simply
by reading the palm
of this poem’s memory.
He was wearing his usual

maroon visor. To help us
feel more comfortable.
And was more one of us
than us. And let it seem
he could have been

in a twosome with me,
stepping onto a first tee.
Anywhere in the world
there’s a fairway, a view
to the mountains

and clouds. Like there is
here. Across the way.
I thought I didn’t think
it would take too much
to ask my hand-holding

partner, Tenzin Gyatso,
if he wanted to ride
in a golf cart. Or walk
eighteen. Clasping his
hands, smiling at the trees

and all the Tibetan refugees
who heard he was
in Middlebury. To be
among us again
and the leaves.

Suggesting we think of them
as no more than ourselves
and the breeze.
And take any hand
as an offering.