A butterfly translates a few sounds

after completing
a four day fast
and cleansing
water, green tea, herbal tea,
ginseng with hot water

healing from the top down and inside out
the body adjusts in a natural rhythm,
diverting essential chemicals
from digestive to immune system
calm, focused, alert and quiet

he drifted into green
nature zone daily
sitting

a black butterfly wearing
purple on wing
edges
lands close
as he sits
near water

a human is chopping down small trees
in the forest to collect kindling

they will tie it with fibers,
hoist it onto their shoulders
leave tangled memory,
along thick red dust road
toward home

the butterfly translates a few sounds

it dances away
circles over ferns, rocks, slag, abused soil,
hovers
lights
close by
we are both
in a resting state

A Delicious Lunch

He wrode his beautiful dirty black mountain bike over to "old" student street for a 60 cent dumpling lunch. Delicious.

He prefers the "old" to the boring "new" commercial student campus street. He enjoys mature green leafy trees filled with small wild sparrows darting down to feed in garden patches. He savors a wide blue sky and orphaned clouds.

He always sits outside swallowing sky, well removed from blaring omnipresent bland TV soap operas and cell phone addicted youth.

"Text me baby! Reveal your passion in 5,000 characters. Say things with electronic letters and symbols you'd never find the courage to speak outloud. Your silence is deafening! Hold my hand.

"Better yet, when we walk covered in our innocent adolescent shyness, slowly rub your elbow against my skin so I know you care, reveal your shy desire with deference and longing. Our skin pours hormonal activity into the possibility we may eventually dance. Text me baby!"

A boy approached the table.

"May I sit here?"
"Sure."
"May I talk with you?"
"Sure. You talk and I listen."
"I don't know what to say."
"You will think of something. You are developing an English mind."
"Yes, maybe."

"What's your name?"
"Francis."
"That's a great name."
"All the good English names were taken by my classmates. I found it in the dictionary."
"I see. It's a fine and strong name. My name is Nature."

"Oh. What's that for?" he said, gesturing at my worn Moleskine notebook.
"I am a writer. I make notes when I travel."
"Where are you going?"
"Here."
"I like to travel," he said. "I am a hunter of foreign teachers."

I smelled raw instinct. "Interesting. How do you hunt?"
"Do you know the gate near the teachers' apartments?"

This place was surrounded by walls, sleeping guards and gates.

"Yes."
"Well, I go there and wait. When a teacher comes out I talk to them while we walk. Then, when they say good-bye I return to the gate and wait for another teacher."
"You are a clever hunter."
"Maybe. But I don't know what to say."

"Talk about the weather."
"We don't talk about the weather here. We ask people if they have eaten."
"I know," I said, pointing at his noodles and sliced vegetables. "Your delicious food is getting cold."

Silence welcomed two hunters.

voice

voice is content.

where is voice?
it is resting.
does voice dream?

yes.
does voice know this?
yes.

does voice respect feelings more than understanding?
yes.

voice senses imagination is more important than knowledge.
how does voice sense this?
it's a long inarticulate voice of the heart.

Rose Speaks

Rose spoke as their train rolled through Morocco.

"Life for people in America is free will versus determination confronting ambition, privacy, isolation, and community in a corrupt, violent cynical society where people want to be in control of their fear. They believed in fear and consumption because they are afraid of being poor and lonely.

“They are willing victims of their fear, uncertainty and doubt. They switched on their amygdala - a small almond shaped brain structure - validated to be involved in fear and emotional response.

“Manipulated by the system, by socialization control mechanisms and the subtle power of right wing conservative persuasion, they either wanted control or approval facing this daily choice. They struggle, suffer, dance, find gratitude, forgiveness in their heart, live and die.

"Knowing it’s necessary to die at least once while you’re alive is good. Get’s it out of the way early."

“Die at the right time,” said Nietzsche.

“I rolled snake eyes in life’s crap game. Reptilian id brain matter shed old skin. My retinas picked up hints of space-time firing light particles flashing along microscopic fibers to brain cells where data is stacked, sorted and analyzed for meaning."

“What is the meaning of meaning?” said the blind man.

Let's Have a Meeting !

Let's have a meeting! Yes. English teachers unite!

Let's get dressed and gather our Moleskine notebook filled with poetry, drawings, dreams, stories and visions. Let's collect one fine fountain pen filled with green racing ink. Remember water. You've gotta have H2O where you go. It's gonna be a hot one. Seven inches from the mid-day sun.

Let's go to a classtomb on old campus surrounded by luscious green trees straining to light. They are a canopy of welcome relief. Rose petals wither on the ground.

Smile and greet your compatriots, your stalwart educational guides. Take a seat. Look around. Engage your senses.

Gaze out the window toward the lake. It is shimmering. You hear scraping. What is it? Local workers are building a wall. A new Great Wall. Exciting. History in the making. How do they do it?

It's simple. Materials and raw labor.

Ten local village men and women - who do most of the heavy lifting - bags of cement, trowels, shovels, a few plastic buckets, water, piles of gray bricks, empty drums for support, some boards, and a couple of wheelbarrows.

Step 1. Build rickety scaffolding using drums and boards. Remove the old steel fence. Discard to side.

Step 2. One team mixes cement and water. Shovel into buckets. Another team puts bricks into a wheelbarrow and pushes it to a dumping area.

Step 3. Men wait for women to hand them bricks and buckets of cement. They slather on the goop and align bricks. Brick by brick the wall goes up. It blocks the green sward, blue lake and wild flowers.
Only the sky is safe.

Step 4. Another team coats the exterior with a bland gray mixture. It's never going to be finished. Art is like that. It's so beautiful we feel like crying.

Someone steps to the podium and starts speaking - using exquisite language - about the value of education. Cost benefit analysis. Profit and loss statements. How we have a huge responsibility to our shareholders.

During a brief moment of silence you hear a shovel, a trowel and laughter. Another day dawns in paradise.