monk holds sun over his head
man walks with yellow balloon
amputee one leg crutch dark eyes
window taxi goes up
+
in between surise and sunset
exploring close radius
"Let me try" says a young boy edging a spoon onto
egg circumfragrences
flowers 4 sale everywhere -
yellow edges, roses, impossible to identify
everyone buys bouquets for homes
color dances down the street
i feel alive here
The Circle Train goes around Yangon.
$1 - three hours.
Kindness of strangers - ticket man points out track.
Wait there. The train is red. Thank you.
Slow, steady, easy smiles.
Ride the rails. Move.
Families on a Sunday picnic with straw mats and bags - food, beverages.
Wide eyed kids hang out windows watching people, places, things.
Old cement structures, time warp - long ago.
Roll past corregated heaven, bamboo homes, rice paddies.
Shy smiles, hey it's a stranger!
Let's have an adventure.
A mountain loses its spirit without cloud, loses its peculiarity without stones, loses its elegance without trees, and loses its life without water, and in painting, one should concentrate the mind, and hold the breath, with concentration of the mind, serenity is maintained, with the breath held up, preciseness is attained.
One should be as serene as an old monk in meditation and be as precise as a silk worm in spitting silk.
The spirit and real fun of painting are from nature and beyond brushes and paints.
Used up by the years, my memory
loses its grip on words that I have vainly
repeated and repeated. My life in the same way
weaves and unweaves its weary history.
Then I tell myself: it must be that the soul
has some secret, sufficient way of knowing
that it is immortal, that its vast, encompassing
circle can take in all, can accomplish all.
Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing,
the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.
- Jorge Luis Borges
from Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf
translated by Alastair Reid Read more…
maintain their honest true
emotional awareness
in the moment
before artificial social conditioning
destroys their fragile innocence
humor and curiosity
crimes against humanity
fear is a killer
mai's hearing evaluation -
anthony from NZ came, met, talked,
promised the world, took her out, tried to seduce her, failed, he left
mai has a black belt in karate
she's killed more men with silence than you can imagine
she is resigned to her life
massage and laundry scrubbing under the paternal gaze
of her older sister who sits in perpetual admiration of her mirrored reflection
how does her awareness register POTENTIAL for unrealized dreams
how does her silent resignation
understanding comprehend one single lost chance,
all the complexity w/o expectations
in the false dream of star rain
they moved a wooden toy pawn,
salad bar in silence
welcomed cool air from a brown river,
children pressed noses to a rolling window, laughing
an archeologist skips through star puddles into 8th Century excavations
freedom sings stones,
selling a Blue Pumpkin to a Cambodian land mine amputee
w/o a left leg selling DVDs to fat tourists
talking with their mouths full
an Enfield rumbles in Pokhara
spinning the Wheel of Time
rejoicing in miracles, small ones
sit in meditation
we do laundry by machine, said language animal
3.8 billion years ago a black hole captured a star the size of our sun
sucked the star into its empty mass the star exploded the black hole
escaping energy created, released streams of light we see today
at that moment 20 raindrops trusted your intuition
to travel is to feel
indonesia asked you to return
two years ago you said thank you to orchids
goodbye to gardens
orchids remember you
the apple tree
you planted at Gardenia
grows strong
roots buried deep below blossoms
fragrant with memory
Street meat in Quanzhou, China
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