Banlung Poem

Her New World Order
t-shirt danced past...

a woman with basket of bread
a woman gently slicing then chopping bacon
a woman scaling silver fish

a woman dividing coconuts
an old woman negotiating passages with her begging bowl
a man carrying bananas on his thin back
a woman fingering REAL notes

lost humans inspecting hope despair laughter and song

girls doing a pedicure
a woman polishing red apples

shadows dancing with impermanence
spoons stabbing ice
glittering silver stars on a headscarf

reflecting elegant universe

Grow Your Soul

Diamond Sutra

“So you should view this fleeting world –

A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,

A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,

A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”

– Diamond Sutra

Nepal

Laughter is beauty

A man pushes an empty wheelchair across airport tarmac.

Boarding pass woman does eyeliner. The 'modern' stainless steel global glass hair port design hasn't reached Vientiane time warp.

Laughter is the Beauty.

Transitions are radiant and clear.

One life, no plan, many adventures.

Intention. Mindfulness. Impermanence.

Ancient stories. Music is the muse in Luang Prabang. Clean air, excellent light, brown Mekong, green elevations, deep valleys and long visions.

Hey Orphan, your Mystery bike is faster now.

Yeah, we visited a shop in LP after seeing the old tire hanging on a nail next to a white shirt drying in the sun. He was a nice guy, filled the tires, blasted Mystery with water, soaped and scrubbed it down, air hosed it dry, oiled the chain, re-calibrated Shimano gears and said, I'm going to Japan next year to see my family.

Dust. Java. Rice.

A professional stranger shows up

Among whispers and smiles

Old man with bamboo staff

Coughs, walks, sits, fills his pipe

Voices decipher

Plain cloth officer cleans glasses

Empty white paper

A girl loving geography

Lights four sticks of incense

Family shrine, morning ritual

Gratitude and impermanence.

stir your bones

Ride Mystery every morning. The joy of dirt, red mud, dust. Explore terrain. Essential.

Remember the future.

Today is a burning body in cement block. Orange and yellow and blue.

She made 70. The wat zone, solemn nephew. She had a long life.

Many crypts. Tall trees, heat, fire, add more logs...rising waves of amok below pillars.

Stir bones.

Pedal on in silence. Know the end.

Discover a village inside a village.

Market women find onions, veggies, conversations. I take java. Ice. Shaded trees whisper. Raksa is 14, in the 6th. We bike together on Sunday.

Connections sit in shadows as her sister and mother wash dishes, doing kind and gentle English.

Market zone is a precise poem. The golden thread.

Plasma IV walks down the street with an old man.

Cold

Logical

Detached