calm joy

My lover-friend brought me pineapples, a yellow mango and passion fruit.

He was away for six weeks. I wash clothes in my silent world.

My hair is tinted golden hued now. I am ebullient. He touched my spine. Soft. I turned, smiling. 

My silent world and calm joy are disguised potentials. We share a silent clear understanding.

Our private time has no fear, no hurry. It is a gentle passion. This is my awareness of our connection on a heart-mind level of trust and authenticity. I am resigned to remembering. 

I paint my nails a shade of red-pink.

My old thin brown fingers are tired after a day washing clothes. My infinite silence no voice is all. He watches my intense angelic face focus on nails. One by one. My heart understands his sense of loss. Accept loss forever. 

zero effort

yes, said the seven year young genius. here's another true class tomb saga from Laos. 

it happened like this. a foreign teacher faced 12 seventh grade homonids.

how many of you are afraid to speak? afraid to make a mistake?

12 hands shot into air. trembling arteries and armed veins exploded cortex capillaries.

reach for the sky yelled a thief disguised as an autocratic robotic local teacher. 

memorize the text. keep your big fat mouth shut. class dismissed. zero effort.

it takes 12 years of formal education to beat the spirit out of a child, sighed a genius.

bye-bye said orphan.

cheap food

Food is cheap here in Asia.

Medicine and education are expensive. Favorite sports are: 

1) driving huge 4x4s. gas costs $2.40 a gallon. sitting in endless long traffic jams. paying parking fees to para-military type uniformed men blowing stainless steel whistles.

2) wandering around enormous prosperous numerous say it fast three times shopping centers. a huge playground for brats. where out-of-control rascals expend spoiled energy. where families enjoy A/C and stuff behind glass. museum quality of life. diversionary influences.

3) whining. students know and understand this behavior is boring and useless. some know without understanding.

4) producing more babies.

Bye-bye said the orphan.

cement

so, said the seven-year young genius, tell me another story about lazy passive stupid people. 

that's a lot of adjectives, said traveler.

what's an adjective?

it's your father deciding to tear out the garden and plant a cement parking lot at his home-guesthouse along the mekong river.

really? i didn't know adjectives is are was were capable of so much destruction and chaos.

o my yes. your grandmother got down on her knees begging him to save the garden. he ignored her.

ignoring people here is a gentle way of life. subtle and effective. reality therapy.

he shamed her into silence.

i am building a new laos. a new cement empire, he proclaimed.

what did grandmother do? 

she rearranged her remaining trees, shrubs, orchids in a shrinking green corner.

she watered with tears. she got down on knees crying, thanking buddha for good dirt.

 

one chinese girl

One joy about self publishing was selecting the cover photograph.

Her image spoke emotional honesty. She was trapped behind the steel grate, a hard grey Chinese educational formation of her childhood in the poor village of Maija in a remote area near the university. Her eyes held world secrets and potential.

She stared at the man, a stranger, a diversion in her universe. Her sisters and schoolmates pushed against her. She was trapped against the gate. It was locked. He was on the other side.

 He held a small black machine up to his eye. She heard a click. The shutter opened and closed, trapping time, trapping her image on a memory card. He smiled, thanked her and disappeared on his dirty black mountain bike.

She had no way of knowing. Her image finding a book cover. Her child eyes there for everyone to see. Stories about stories and the girl in some alchemical manifestation lived breathing and aware of her immortality. 

He’d visited her primary school to sing and dance. Speaking strange unintelligible words. His laughter and kindness were a relief after the autocratic, punishing manner of bored illiterate women teachers. They didn't want to be here any more than the kids.

No one had a choice here. You did what you were told to do in a harmonious society filled with social stability ordered from Beijing.

A long distant dream far away from a poor village where people tilled soil following oxen in dirt, mud and rice paddies.