Sparrow

Namaste,

A man waits with a weight scale. A bag of potatoes. Cool shade. Dawn the down against red bricks.
He shines his black dress shoes with a newspaper. 
A woman in a turquoise shawl decorates stone with her whisk broom. 
A woman unfolds green stalk onions on a white plastic bag. 
Boys slap Tantric wooden masks removing yesterday. 
A light rain falls.
Sparrow wings flutter in your face. Directly. 
Their air currents support six prop jets as curious enthralled tourists press their faces against plastic glimpsing Himalayan mystery and beauty.

Metta.

To Chiba

Namaste noble warrior of the Zen path,

Your haiku writing is inspirational. 
Farewell little French traveller someone whispered.
The father asks me if I have a (wi-fi) signal. You have three signal children and a beautiful signal wife. 
You don't need an electronic signal. He laughed with this small realization.
 
The crazy anxious German man insists on knowing the cremation cost.
I don't want to die, he said, The water is too dirty.
He needs medicine. He needs to slow down. His energy is a violent fireball. 
It consumes his desire. 
He creates his personal cremation ceremony in public places.
 
In dawn light women inspect orange and yellow flowers.
Men haggle over chickens for the new year sacrifice.
The chariot collided with a wall. Wooden wheels are pinned to stone. Towers shift toward gravity.
Boys play with tower brass bells, women offer fire flowers.
Men discuss future engineering projects.
 
Your Sakura cherry blossom are sublime. 
Seasons bloom with love, beauty.

Metta.

Die of Shame

Namaste,

In a Bhaktapur, Nepal guesthouse it’s dinner time. Five Chinese aliens appear. Two males and three women. They are in their 20’s. They are armed with laptops, cell phones, and loud discursive language. This is normal.

Noise and confusion and interruptions and arrogant attitudes fit their life style. One girl is dressed like a flapper dancer from the roaring 20’s. Daisy Bell talks with her mouth full of rice. Her red diamond tiara squeezes her frontal lobe into a shucked pea. 

They are lucky to have a passport. Their parents are important Red Party Officials. It’s all about connections. They whined their way out of manners and intelligence in public places. They are the new breed of The Ugly Chinese, the lost, terribly frustrated never satisfied in their exported coddled spoiled youth.

They are the new emperors and empresses of a prosperous, for a minority, rising dynasty. They act like they own the restaurant. They complain about the price of a meal. One girl said in a shrill voice, “Oh, it’s too expensive. I am a poor student.” She is majoring in Stupidity and Callousness at Beijing Normal University. She failed Basic Courtesy 101.

A brat boy chastises the Nepalese waiter about his pronunciation of Menu. The crew cut Mandarin idiot commands the boy to say it again, Menu.

They are living, breathing examples of the spoiled one child political and cultural genocide legacy. It will come back to haunt China. They have the emotional maturity of a 15-year old. They are so busy stuffing their faces and talking over each other all the European guests stare at them. They don’t care.

They act and talk like this at home. A new strain of vociferous Chinese virus has been unleashed on Earth.

Suddenly Flapper Dolly jumped up on the table yelling, Kill the Running Capitalist Dogs! Making Money in China is Glorious!

Everyone threw their steel toed reinforced Everest hiking boots at her. She died of Shame. Her friends dragged her body out, selling the boots to pay for her cremation.

Metta.

Twins

Namaste, 

In the street life of Bhaktapur is Pottery Square. 250 people from immediate families make clay, create pots, piggy banks, animals, bowls, living art, dolls, bells, oil lamp bases, and cooking containers. They dry them in the sun. They slow fire them using straw fuel in large kilns. 

"We live here as a family," said a girl, 12 with her twin sister. "My father makes piggy banks. My mother moves them into the sunlight." A potter uses a heavy staff to get his wheel turning, rotating faster and faster until it is a blur. He shapes a pot. 

Finished products are sold locally, throughout the Kathmandu valley and exported faster than light.

Metta.

Kid Fools

Namaste,

Said the young Nepalese girl carrying the world on her back.

Her world is a large plastic sack for collecting valuable garbage. She uses a piece of thin hooked metal to probe piles of refuse. She has children scavenger friends in Vietnam (bundled logs and firewood), Laos (twigs and firewood), Cambodia (trash, charcoal, plastic bottles) all singing and dancing under the weight. Down all the days of their youth.

The weight of childhood is heavy. Children are not fooled. No joke. 

The girl led a traveler to the national zoo. A huge magnificent orange and white striped Bengal tiger roared near the bars. Feed Me! He dragged raw red buffalo meat into the shade expanding canines, grinding flesh.

Two sad brown eyed crying Black Himalayan bears in a cramped cold cement cage with scraggly tree trunks pressed their noses through rusty bars whispering, Please open the cage and take us back to the mountains.

A Griffon's brown elegant wing span blocked the sun flying beneath wire limitations. Oh, it said, If only I could soar again on thermals. If only I could regain my dignity and freedom. 

I have seen many people in cages, said the girl.

Metta.

Draw water. Draw your dream.