88 seconds in Nepal

Namaste,

Namaste means I salute the light (god) within you.

 

It is the daily Hindu greeting between people with your palms and fingers together raised toward your eyes in a blessing. Smile. 

 

He visited Nepal for 88 seconds. First was Bhaktapur, outside Kathmandu.

No traffic. No pollution. Cool fresh air. Limited electricity access. Daily power outages are the norm. Ironic considering Nepal has the second highest water volume energy source on Earth.

 

It is an ancient town, filled with Hindu temples, daily rituals, ringing bells, flowers and incense offerings, old hand carved wooden windows, brick homes, brick streets, tiled roofs, pottery, yogurt, vegetable and fruit life street market squares, amazing flowing sari and shawl rainbows, gentle people. It's on the old trading route from Tibet to India. 

 

There is no home plumbing. If you need water you go to the community well after dawn and before dusk. You drop your plastic container down brick shafts. You haul it up hand over hand. You pour it into narrow necked brass or copper urns.

 

You drop it again. You haul it up. Repeat until urns are full. You carry them on your hips through narrow brick alleys filled with friends and families. At home you filter it.

You boil it.

You drink it.

You use it for cooking, washing clothes, brushing teeth (a popular outdoor activity) and bathing.

Recycle, reuse, refresh. You return to the well.

Women and girls do all the water hauling, heavy water lifting and daily manual labor. So it goes. 

Metta.

songlines

Namaste,

"Poetry proper is never merely a higher mode (melos) of everyday language. It is rather the reverse: everyday language is a forgotten and therefore used-up poem, from which there hardly resounds a call any longer." -Martin Heidegger, 'Language'

+

"Have you seen the Indians?" asked the son of the Emir of Adrar.
"I have." 
"Is it a village or what?"
"No," I said. "It is one of the greatest countries in the world."
"Tiens! I always thought it was a village."

+

"Useless to ask a wandering man
Advice on the construction of a house.
The work will never come to completion."

-Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin.

Metta.

aftermath

the wicked witch is dead
we have the body
who's body?
his body
the dark one
the knight of vengeance
a nuance

it was a targeted assault
by special forces
conditioned by the gravity
of the situation
their thrill of the kill

on a safe house in pack your bags
it wasn't safe
after all

what will you do with the body?
we will get funding to embalm it
we will construct a mauseleum
in the capital 
it will be displayed
for eternity

yelling, crying, distraught, joyful citizens
scream, We are saved!
in this Brave New World
filled with love, forgiveness, compassion

we will parade 
the body
coast to coast
then a world tour

sell tickets, fake euphoria
tourist memorabilia
cards, videos, stamps, flags, posters

death is a lonely business

note

namaste,

european woman opens her small red and black notebook
tears the himalayas from her map
her trail of tears
white mountain gods

blue sky, eagles, deep gorges, waterfalls, cold wind
raging rivers
presses it all preserving persevering

between lined white crumpled empty sheets
scribbles memory 
down life's little road

with anxious nervous fingers 
she presses a tin foil magic pill free
swallows h2o my
how did i get here?
what if i die here?

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.