old man's hands

Old man’s hands.
Left hand’s purple veins, left ear hearing aid.

Adjusts watch on left wrist, withered tilted thin pale hand long purple spider web veins.
Right hand folds thin watch strap on thin wrist, compressing time flat.
Right hand dusts rice from table edge into middle. Hand brushes forehead skin.

His left hand, like my father’s dying skin, white veins dominate action, feeling space.
Many pens in pocket. Old down vest warming 60 year old skeleton.

One old man waits for his Japanese take-out meal. Carries it, trembling hands.
One grain of rice.

gathering material

full moon Hokkaido farmer
Ando Tokutaro -
Hiroshige (1797-1858) - orphan, woodblock artist
Edo period

collapsing kitchen utensils,
steel reactionaries
fish in moon reflection

obstinate tyrant selves dressed as elves
7 dwarves gather delicious apples
secrets of repressed fear, anger,
investigate
AIDS collusion secrets
collisions inside wild
stallions with maximum efficiency

monkey mind grasping attachment with desire
shake, rattle & roll

noble suffering
flaying corpses
for vulture’s lunch meeting

spinning clay
eating fire

sublime paradox

"It was love & passion that made us suffer"

“It’s not so much that there is something strange about time....the thing that’s strange is what’s going on inside time. We will understand how simple the universe is when we recognize how strange it is.”

the writer escape the tyranny of what really happened
dreaming his fictional dream

calculating - cost risk liability (CRI)
estimating - cost benefit analysis (CBA)
return on investment (ROI)

loom rivers flow in silence of words

- translated summer 2005

A Lhasa Temple

After entering the Barkhor you eventually reach a well fed flaming chorten on your right. Women sell juniper and cedar. Next to the chorten is a rectangular building containing a large prayer wheel as pilgrims pace worn stone spinning the wheel. Around the building are copper prayer wheels.

Up a small alley is a small two-story temple. This is where you go every day after dawn to sit with monks, often more than once a day. It has the feeling and energy you need.

Chanting, drums, incense, people being blessed. After spinning rows of copper prayer wheels lining the building, they enter and either pass into a small temple at the base or climb narrow stone steps and through a well worn door hanging into the upper level.

There are three ornate, copper plated Buddhas facing you. Past, present and future Buddhas. Their base is on the ground floor. Rows of butter lamps, fruit offerings, kata scarves, money, coins. On the right are two worn wooden benches. On the floor is a large pan full of round clay balls. People take a ball when they enter and rub the paste on their faces and hands before dropping it into a pan. They join people waiting to be blessed.

A monk sits on a raised platform swathed in burgundy robes. He holds the vajra diamond thunderbolt and bell in his left hand ringing out a continuous tone as he chants sutras. Gathered with bowed heads at his feet are jostling groups of pilgrims to receive his blessing. He goes through the cycle, chanting, touching people on their heads with the thunderbolt, then pours holy water on their heads. They ease away as others push forward.

Pilgrims flow into the room, spoon butter into the flickering candles, move clockwise past the Buddhas making their offerings. You rub the paste on your face and hands, kneel and feel the water penetrate your scalp before sitting on the bench next to smiling old women and men focusing on the compassionate eye.

Wandering in freezing January air appreciating the brilliant sky, snow covered mountains ringing the valley, joining the river of devout pilgrims mixed with sellers - skins, carpets, hats, heavy wool coats, prayer flags and kata scarves in rainbow colors, old saddles, bridles, gongs, cymbals, incense, prayer beads; turquoise, coral, glass, wood, stone, yak bone, cheap plastic.

It's a curious mix of the devout making their kora circular motion, spinning prayer wheels, clicking beads, moving along with the odd Chinese police, merchants, kids, and beggars.

Side streets offer tables of huge yellow cakes of butter, slabs of meat as laughing men hack through bone, weighing it up on old scales. Piles of yak heads, glistening butter, rolling carts of dried fruit from Xinjing - apricots, raisins, dates. Merchants from the far west in skull caps, white beards.

Off the Barkhor down narrow twisted alleys - found a coral and silver necklace from a single woman emptying her bags on a metal table covered in cardboard. She was all alone against a wall.

Severed tree branches with prayer flags stapled to their thin arms stand against a house. The trees have been cut into long slender segments. This New Year, or Losar, people will buy them, climb onto their roofs and replace the old ones on four corners.

A smiling man inks prayer flags. He sits in partial sun with rolls of white, red, blue, yellow, green cotton cloth to his left. On a pillow are two 8×10 carved wooden blocks. Black ink from a plastic bottle sits in a small pan. He sponges up what he needs and coats a block. He pulls white cloth over it, centers a segment, slides his hand into a torn plastic bag, starts at the bottom and applies pressure up, down, sideways. Ink bleeds fabric. He pulls fabric through, re-inks the block, repeating the procedure.

A man next to him cuts dried cloth into individual prayer flags, stapling rainbows to thin branches.

Letter to Christine in Paris

I weave on the loom of time. I weave the word "context" from Latin. Con (with or together), texere (to weave). A change in context transforms experience. Context is an essential and active process. The weaving directs our thoughts, emotions and actions.

“We are chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of our eyes,” a child whispers.

The rain ceased crashing for a moment here in Donegal and we communicated with you in Paris, your distant city of delight, your city of dreams. Our relationship is a flash of lightning along horizen’s thin thread of illumination. You ask how I am doing, how I am being.

My Japanese language studies allow a deeper understanding of images in the ‘floating world’ or UKIYO-E. Ando Hiroshige lived from 1797-1858. His birth name was Tokutaro and he was the son of a fire marshal and an orphan. He became an artist.

In 1832 he traveled the Eastern Sea Route or Tokaido road from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto. There were fifty-three resting places or ‘stations’ along the way and he designed and made woodblock prints of the places along the route. His creations influenced many famous European and American artists in the 19th century.

You will be pleased to know the process of translations are going well. ‘Meisho’ is a convention of poetic associations with seasons.

Basho, a well known haiku poet said, “Tabi wa jinsei desu,” which means “Travel is human life — life is a journey.”

Once, in another incarnation exploring the island of Hokkaido, my morning started with a walk to Towita park to enjoy fall foliage open spaces old fir trees and paths along water, small lakes and many stone statues.

Workers protected smaller trees against approaching winter by building a conical shaped pyramid of straw reinforced with bamboo strips and secured with ropes. Many sculptures in the park.

Beached blue and yelllow summer canoes are piled and tied up for winter. Ducks and mallards swim and rest on the water. Women gather leaves along wide paths. At a Shinto temple on a small island in the park an old brown structure imposes its shape and sentinel protection. Tori gate, cement bridge and balanced stone lions in the small courtyard. Crows cackle fall morning songs.

At a temple is a square stone basin full of water with four round wooden ladles resting on a crossbar. A single cup of water dipped and poured back into the basin creates a wonderful visual ripple effect. A single drop on the surface sends out a thousand colors as the golden and brown pebble bottom explodes in front of your eyes creating a new dimension. The drop itself moves out from the center, creating smooth colors evolving quickly then all is quiet with emptiness and stillness. A visitor drops many single elements because the moving image is wonderful and clear. It is a simple playful childlike nature. A manifestation of universal mind, essence.

A traveler inspects paper prayers and 1000 crane offerings on a board near stone steps. Two women arrive at the water basin, drink, spit water out and walk up steps, clap their hands three times, bow in prayer, clap three times, throw coins through the wooden slots into the temple, clap twice and slowly walk down stone steps stopping to throw remaining water on one of the stone lions before laughing and leaving across the stone bridge.

The art museum is open. Friendly volunteer women serve coffee, sweets and green tea. The curator comes out and speaks enough English to offer directions for the textile museum some distance away and leads to his current exhibition of oil paintings.

The majority of paintings are from 1935-1970. Early works show agricultural significance; hard manual labor in fields - women and children with shovels; selling vegetables, isolated in their hard eyed abandon, conditioned responses to a beautiful yet cruel landscape.

Some W.W.II material in pencil. Landscapes play an important role, their majestic background and backdrop sets the scene for the artist to capture the essence of military and rural people in their struggle to survive. It is basic and integral to their necessity. No images of gaiety and laughter.

The Yukara Ori folk craft museum - one of the main reasons for coming to the city is wonderful! The building resembles a medieval fortress high on a hill overlooking the city, valley and nestled close to the mountains full of fall colors.

The museum specializes in hand loom woolen fabrics of Hokkaido. Their brochure says, “When Hokkaido is mentioned, people think of long, severe winters and heavy snowfalls, but when the snow season ends, Hokkaido turns into a colorful world of greenery and flowers. An outstanding feature of YUKARA ORI is that they are based on such themes as ‘Ice Floes,’ ‘Lilacs,’ ‘Sweet Briar,’ ‘Lake Mashu’ and ‘Swan,’ themes drawn from the natural beauty and climate of Hokkaido. All of the work at YUKARA ORI is done by hand from the initial spinning and dyeing of the yarns into hundreds of colors, right up to the final weaving on the hand loom. It may take years to design and complete a new piece.”

Rooms display craftsmanship; blouses, scarfs, shirts, jackets, wall hangings, place mats, coasters, skirts, bags, purses, bookmarks, coin purses, and small bean bag toys. Mock-up rooms are decorated with the complete color coordination. Fine wood and the simplicity style is ethereal and utilitarian. A room contains the carding and weaving process in photos and actual displays.

A woman at a large hand loom gently works threads creating a growing design. People watch in fascination and vanish as she continues, alone. She carefully twists the threads into a balanced weight and line before gently pulling and pressing them into the pattern. She is following her meditation.

To Be Continued...

Working in Kuwait 1/2

I worked in Kuwait from 1985-1988. Iraq and Iran were at war but you wouldn’t know it. War’s death echoed far away.

I ditched my interpreter - the minder - and vanished into a souk surrounded by high rise silver towers financed with desert oil revenue.

Small twisted medieval dirt alleys contained every sight, sound, smell and vibration of human existence. This was the vitality of Kuwait for me. Crafty merchants with long braided beards bartered cloth, sandals, soaps, running shoes, spices, pots, pans, shovels, hoses, stereos and watches.

There were suitcases, hair cream, candy, wrenches, apples, oranges, utensils, fresh goat meat, nuts, berries, trinkets, prayer beads, carpets, gold, bells, gongs, knives, hammers, henna, embroidery, baskets and tea, mixed with babbling tongues and laughter. Inside long shadows men gurgled hubbly bubbly pipes flipping scarred dominoes with gnarled fingers discussing multiple wives, children, fishing, pearls and the price of exile.

If you think it’s easy, let alone romantic, living here in this sweltering land of endless horizons then, “you got another think coming,” as my old man used to say.

Sure, the money's good, the weather’s fine for eight months of the year. You can consume all the material goods your little heart desires, maids and drivers are cheap but look at the down side.

Dust storms called shamals blast south from Turkey obliterating all vision. Fine silt covers everything, gets in your eyes and ears, brings on depression and anxiety. Temperatures from June to September never drop below 110-120 degrees. You forget what a cloud looks like, blank brown landscapes warp your brain.

Natives carried clandestine images of snow capped mountains or pastoral valleys in their pocket. People with cash complain constantly about not being able to get out of Kuwait.

People with money and a villa in Geneva, London or Monte Carlo left long ago for the summer driving around Europe in a rental for a change of scenery.

Social life here was like doing research with atomic particles. The uncertainty principle. You have to know what you want, what’s remotely possible and keep your eyes and ears open for any possible encounter which may lead to an invitation to an ‘open bar.’

‘Flash’ is a hard to swallow yet compatible home brewed liquid substance which passes for spirits. The subsequent headache always tells you not to repeat last night’s performance, but after a week of swallowing dust you are ready for another ’flash’ attack. Expatriates smuggle in yeast to brew in their bathrooms. It helps pass the time.

I smuggled in Yeats. “Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman pass by.” I paid female cleaning crews from Sri Lanka to keep their mouths shut or face deportation. It’s a tough row to hoe.

On a more mundane level, Kuwait is historically and geographically caught in a tough situation. To keep Iraq at bay Kuwait sells Iraq’s oil and provides access for imports. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, perceives Kuwait as a natural extension of its own boundary, which leads to placation. Saudi Arabia is geographically bigger, has more oil, and considers itself the dominant Islamic force in the Gulf.

Area governments agree to disagree.

Oil tankers and container ships ply the gulf on a flat horizon working north and south. An occasional military vessel lies quietly offshore. Water skiers sail past wind surfers looking for moving air. Fishing boats complement orange buoys and ragged bamboo traps for hammour, a regular food source.

Of 2.1 million people in Kuwait, only 1.1 million are nationals. Foreigners include Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, Europeans and thousands from third world countries. Relatively speaking they can make much more digging ditches, cleaning homes and doing menial labor here than in their own country. They support an extended family in Sri Lanka or Dhaka on their wages.

Local business is slow during the summer. Hotels are at 20-30% occupancy, full of Italian marble, black and white mosaic floor tiles. Tall Greek marble columns extend to a ceiling three flights above symmetrical massive chandeliers mixed with the sound of water - a sign of wealth and good fortune - from cascading falls. Luscious imported plants hang from balconies.

I was hired in 1985 to establish the most sophisticated fitness center in the Gulf at the Regency Palace Hotel. A $2.5 million dollar project. To get the job required three solid years of persistent, patient letter writing and submitting resumes to various general managers after making a contact in Eugene, Oregon. Who you know, not what you know.

I was teaching tennis at a five star Canadian resort named Manitou or Great Spirit, when the offer came through in August.

“Mr. Leonard, this is Jacque Hamburger, the General Manager of the Kuwait Hyatt Regency and your name is on the top of the list for our new Recreation Manager. Are you still interested in the position?”

“Yes. When do I start?”

“Next month. We will fax you the details and contract. Thank you very much.”

“Thank you for calling.”

The other professionals were afraid.

“You’re crazy to take the job,” one said. “There’s a war going on.”

“After Vietnam everything is easy. This is the opportunity I’ve been working on. I’m not feeding tennis balls to beginners forever. Time for new adventures."

I landed in Kuwait, left the airport and walked into a blast furnace.