raindrops wear boxing gloves,

thousands of them

come crashing down

and beat my room.

Under its tin roof

my room cries from inside

and wets my bed, my papers.

Sometimes the clever rain comes

from behind my room,

the treacherous walls lift

their heels and allow

a small flood into my room.

I sit on my island-nation bed

and watch my country in flood,

notes on freedom,

memoirs of my prison days,

letters from college friends,

crumbs of bread

and Maggi noodles

rise sprightly to the surface

like a sudden recovery

of a forgotten memory.

Three months of torture,

monsoon in the needle leafed pines

Himalaya rinsed clean

glistens in the evening sun.

Until the rain calms down

and stops beating my room

I need to console my tin roof

who has been on duty

from the British Raj.

This room has sheltered

many homeless people.

Now captured by mongooses

and mice, lizards and spiders,

and partly rented by me.

A rented room for home

is a humbling existence.

My Kashmiri landlady

at eighty cannot return home.

We often compete for beauty

Kashmir or Tibet.

Every evening,

I return to my rented room;

but I am not going to die this way.

There has got to be

some way out of here.

I cannot cry like my room

I have cried enough

in prisons and

in small moments of despair.

There has got to be

some way out of here.

I cannot cry,

my room is wet enough.

Tenzin Tsundue is the leading Tibetan English language poet-in-exile and activist of Friends of Tibet, an organization whose activities are aimed at ending China's occupation of Tibet (http://www.friendsoftibet.org>www.friendsoftibet.org). The poem was sent to The Daily Star literature page for publication.