(top) No more of this for a while: A yearly Buddhist dance at the Bhutanese Gomba in Pedong, Darjeeling District, India. They ended up pelting those paper-mache penises at the crowd--apparently part of the idea behind this day-long, absurdist spectacle is to remind the monks and lay community alike not to take the trappings of the religion too seriously. Spring, 2005.

(second from top) Or this: Kanchenjunga Himal (3rd highest peak on earth) seen from Darjeeling.

8 July '09

Here's a novel setting for an illwind entry: the slick, frankly bewildering Changi airport in Singapore. It's full of features you'd never find in Nepal, including moving sidewalks ('travelators') and the free (if time-limited) internet I'm taking advantage of now while waiting for a 4 AM flight to Tokyo. In another 24 hours, with any luck, I'll be back where I started 10 months ago: New York City, in my mother's cushy, slightly funky Upper West Side apartment. With a whole lot of digesting to do.

The last month in Nepal was a whirlwind. It's full of stories, naturally, including at least one I haven't figured out how to tell. This last month also included a 2-week trek in the Annapurna region, blissfully deserted thanks to the monsoon (which hadn't actually hit yet when we were there). Photos, and maybe some of those stories, should be forthcoming here. For now, some poems I scribbled out in the airport bar . . .

Transit Zone

Airport bar, the tropics.
“Singapore’s Favorite,” reads the dubious banner. This place
could be anywhere.
Amidst the manicured cactus garden
low murmur of transiters’ chitchat
under jet engines’ hypnotic whine
A place to kill time. In ones and twos,
the international sippers and smokers
percolate through.
A dozen inflections of English
Different strengths of Marlboros,
various dilutions of alcohol. Skies clear
above the nighttime city glow.

Every traveler a capsule of history,
a story waiting to be told. I picture
cartoon-style thought bubbles
hovering over every insular head.
Or at least give us signs with some basic information:
port of departure _____
final destination _____
We owe each other that much.


Dakshinkali, Fourth of July, 2009

The photos shows two naked white backs
bent low, heads down, side by side,
next to three clothed ones. White limbs
and brown are sunk ankle, wrist-deep
in glistening muck dotted with fluorescent shoots
of paddy, the pattern of which is being extended
to fill the oblong terrace.

An image that seems to beg post-hoc captioning
but here’s how it came about:
a shout of “dhaan ropna aaunupardaina?”
from across the fields, aimed at
the presumably oblivious tourists.
shouldn’t you/mustn’t we come plant some rice?
A. called back, “ma dhaan ropna aau?”
Shall I come plant rice?
“ropna aau!” come plant!
We slipped off our rubber sandals,
ubiquitous footwear of the foothills
and vast plains stretching away south,
and there we were.

It would have been as simple as that
to become adopted. Had we stayed 5 minutes more
we’d have shared the family’s mid-afternoon meal,
beaten rice and potatoes one can guess;
stayed ‘til dark and we’d have found ourselves
put up for the night. No way we could have left
before the next morning’s rice meal, and after that
escape would have been impossible.

Instead I fled the lush hills
back down into the Valley’s grind and haze
and on to shiny unfathomable places
like the one I come from, like this one.

In four months our rice will mature.