old poem

Greetings,

Seeing or watching 
even blind people see
- the tailor on the Saigon sidewalk feeling threads, 
a needle points magnetic north, true north? Such a question.

evolutionary GPS navigational systems inside his fingers

sharp diabolical edges of conversations
laying out splendid contorted plans
program expectancies 
there is so much we do not 
or will not or cannot know

where the inside is hidden
in the outside inside
 

old black and white portraits 
of grandfathers from 1936 Spanish civil war years 
feast or famine centuries

cover walls 
eating grass soup 
grandmothers doing their white 
crochet handicrafts wearing fingernails 
down to the bone into the lentil soup it goes 
under watchful framed wedding dress prop remembering

how it was running with bulls
beneath grateful gladiolus spilling their blood
for tourist images

a day after climbing sharp stones steps
over valleys buried in mountains
to Cueva de la Pileta caves

seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, tasting, absorbing 27,000 year old Paleolithic paintings  
bison, goats, seal, deer, archers, fish, traps, calendars, stalactites, stalagmite organ music

sweeter than dream time ancestor stories
 
dripping water pure pools
hibernating marsupials species specific  
2,300 bats zooming toward night
 
fires for illumination
no cooking
eat it raw
fertility symbols
even the archaeologists 
do not know 
exactly what they mean
calcium carbonate 
copper and iron 
5 cm of animal fat pigment
traces of fingerprints
pure water

releases itself inside mountain

we took tea
near heavy ripe lemons 
spring flowers struggled toward faint sun 
crying words 
sharing silence
pink and white petals dancing in a clear blue sky

Metta.

Chinese kids Take the stairs

Greetings,

Yes, it's true, this passionate desire for pressure to pass exams in Chinese schools resulted in millions of children dying today in a stampede to escape their teachers after evening class. Stare at the stairs. 

-It was raining, said the authorities. Blame the rain.

-The rain had nothing to do with it, said a survivor, age 10. It was a death trap.

Chinese educational tools.

The provincial education party leader was fired. The principal of the school was fired. The parents of dead children can't do a thing because they are willing victims of the system. They have absolutely no power. How can the system fire parents? They have no idea how we run the institution. We brainwash the students and their parents.

-Mandatory study from 6:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. seven days a week, said the system.

-This is your DUTY as parents, said the system.

-As students, your DUTY is to pass the exams. 60 is heaven. 59 is hell. Learning is secondary. 

-We have developed safe and secure schools for your children, said the system. Look at our safety record. Look at the substandard construction materials and cost-cutting measures we have implemented to save money. Look at the bribery and corruption we've developed and nurtured to manipulate everyone from the bottom to to the top to create the finest, safest educational facilities in the entire world. We pay everyone off. 

-As you know from our long history the value of human life is worthless, said the system.

-Our rigid educational safety standards includes spotless bathrooms, expansive sports halls where students are required to sing silly patriotic songs about the motherland, dining halls where they eat the same mass produced rice and stringy green soggy vegetables day after day, dorm rooms where we pack 8-10 students into rat cages, an empty useless library and lots of slippery tiled stairs which, in the event of a fire, panic, epidemic, plague, tornado, hurricane, typhoon, and earthquakes - remember Sichuan and the shoddy buildings that killed 8,000 kids - become death traps. 

If you protest the death of your child because of our negligence we will:

1. evict you from your home
2. remove you from your plush paper pushing bureaucratic job
3. send you to a re-education labor camp on another planet
4. make you pay a fine
5. hunt you down

Your teacher loves you.

The school, to prevent disorder and broken social harmony by distraught parents grieving over the unfortunate and unforeseen death of their young children, will hold a one minute of silence memorial tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. in honor of our loyal and patriotic students who perished in the latest tragedy in their pursuit of good grades and academic excellence.

May their untimely death serve as a reminder to all of us to remain vigilant and steadfast in our common purpose of command and control procedures.

Thank you for your attention.

Metta.

Mekong - River of Nine Dragons

Greetings,

I've just returned from three days in the Mekong Delta. It was marvelous to be on the water, this swirling powerful natural endless flow of time - past, present and future. To realize it's source in Tibet. It runs 4500 kilometers through China, between Myanmar and Laos, through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. 

Travelers shared their short sweet stories. Icelandic, German, English, and French. The majority were on quick 2-3 week vacations through Southeast Asia. I felt their anxiety and time schedule pressure, some had adjusted in some small measure to the rhythm of the Asian way. Others were suffering from sensory overload and in a hurry to get somewhere else. So it goes.

The Icelandic team of two brothers and their sister left Reykjavik in August and landed in Mumbai where it was 40+. I'm melting!

They stayed with boats and buses, reached Kathmandu, flew to Beijing and overland to Saigon. They left by boat to Cambodia and eventually Thailand. Two will continue to Sydney for New Year's. 

I took an Open Tour to My Tho, Ben Tre and Can Tho. It included a home-stay with a family deep in the jungle along a tributary. The tourist sites on small islands in villages included: a coconut candy production operation, honey bee processing, a python wrapped around your neck, fish farms, an alligator farm, a floating market, a rice paper making village, a Cham weaving village and a climb up Sam Mountain offering 360 degree visions of the huge delta and Cambodia to the west. Stunning and sublime.

At the home stay I awoke at 4 to sit by the river with the crescent moon and stars reflected in water. 

An extensive Saigon color gallery is up for your visual enjoyment. 

Metta.

Release birds to gain merit.

Travel transience

Yes and thanks for your patience while I was in transit, exploring new visions and shifting my base of exploration. Indonesia is where I sit down now to continue my work.

Transience is the only reality.

I have a lot to share with you, enough for a story, a long prose poem, or an in depth podcast, yes, a verbal sound bite. 

So, would you like the short version or the long version?

A short segment: packaging. Airline tin foil wrapped around hot strange food at 29,000 feet is a challenge. Keep your elbows in so you don't disturb Mr. Sleepy next door. He is a cook on a cruise ship based in Europe and returning home to Jakarta for a brief holiday with family and friends. 

Light sandle wood incense. Step out onto the front porch before dawn and communicate with a trilling bird. Whistle a song. Listen and repeat. Say hello to a large brown meditative frog sitting near a flowering species of tropical plant with red flowers for a hat. 

By now I have been to many gardens and collected 20+ flowering plants with exotic names for indoor and outdoor growth and beauty. I am living in a tropical paradise. Orchids are amazing and reasonably priced. I love the feeling of dirt. It is a hard packed red clay variety. I dig and plant, dig and plant. I water after dark, after a day of blazing heat. The flowers and plants appreciate this kindness.

After a week of teacher training I get a shiatsu massage. A girl walks on my spinal chord. It's a real alignment.

I found a new COSMIC mountain bike, helmet, front and rear lights, lock, and magic bell. The music is crisp and clear. The echo sends a pulse and signal and waves across the universe. The Tibetan bells are answering in their distinctive well calibrated tonal language.

"Maid" girls wash cars and sweep dust. Someone clangs a metal utensil on a wok and roll preparing breakfast. Wild roaming cats climb into curbside trash containers, lose their balance and spill the contents. Suburban people own two cars. They start one and leave it idling. A mosquito whispers, "I need blood." A flickering candle illuminates their probing sensitivity.

You remember a small story Zeynep shared while on the ferry across blue water to Istanbul. "Before we are born we know everything, then, when we are born, after being born, we forget everything because of the pain." 

Should I say something here about all the tourists wearing flip-flops in Istanbul? Perfect for the terrain; old Roman stones, inlaid mosaic tiles and wheelchairs. How, as their day progresses they gradually become worn out, tired, bored and sullen? Perhaps. 

One day at breakfast on the garden terrace overlooking the Bosporus filled with tankers, ferries and sailboats a chemistry teacher from Pittsburgh said, "Our daughter is 15. She says traveling is hard work." His wife, thinking about leaving for Israel to see friends and a seminar in physics added, "Somewhere in India is a man carrying the world on his back."

"Yes," said a linguistic gardener, "We are sanctifying a finite space in an infinite universe."