On a Stairway in Luang Prabang
Step as you will through life,
A thousand ways, a thousand places.
Carry a home in your heart
Or spend years seeking the door
Where your soul will always smile.
Do you ease the way for others,
Or just yourself?
Do you climb great mountains
Just to leave them unchanged?
One day, the heights of holy Phu Si
Will lay as soft valleys.
We, only memories.
But our children’s children?
Will they, too, have reason to smile,
Like those dreaming strangers
Who finished their stairs for us?
About this poem
This poem, representing Laos, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.
