Watching the first snow fall ~
I want to be ~
like children in Tokyo ~
running outside ~
with outstretched arms ~
and open mouths ~
to greet the only snowfall ~
of the year.
Lorna Cheriton
"YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE BUT IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, ONCE IS ENOUGH." MAE WEST
A larva
too much of my life
a polyp spinning through water
carried in a swift instant
on a myriad of dancing fins
hesitating over a patch of sand
some honeycombed coral
rippling waves over the forever future
when I will anchor into sand
I must stop skimming lightly away
from the edges of islands
and learn to land bravely
on unknown shores
of new lands.
On his first trip from home
the born-again Christian
earnest young man
sets down his unsullied backpack
and takes out his first aid kit
pristine white and red
he kneels to the blistered foot
of the Himalayan innkeeper
who overcharged him
for a sagging bed
dim room
and faded quilt
the innkeeper
wears his weathered skin
and ragged cloak
like the mountains
wear their forests
earth and age
ground into the crevasses
torn out of its sterile covering
the antiseptic bandage
makes a white scar
on the mountain man's wounded
and calloused feet
the traveler feels privileged
to enact Jesus' healing.
Headlines in a Bombay tabloid
“Reluctant Bride
Strangled in Bed”
just married
she left her parents' house
and after the ceremony
her husband
brought her to his house
they ate a meal
went to bed
he wanted sex
she declined
politely
he insisted
she refused
they argued
while she slept
he wound
cloth around her neck
and pulled
he wanted sex
got an empty body
he turns
the blood's blade
against himself
drips confession
on the strangled limpness
that was briefly his wife.
Running away
from marrying
the man who loves me
I travel
to lose my selfish ego
among the Himalayan mountains
in Kashmir
I encounter a medical missionary
dispensing medications
and Christianity
to sick Muslims
he invites me
to join his mission
sick of myself
I see
an invitation to change
into a good person
caring about others
he sees
my acceptance
as his invitation
to save my soul
meaning
I must surrender my ego
be "One in the Spirit"
believe, think, feel
as he does
he sees Satan
in questions I ask him
in mail I receive
in my talking
with other travelers
he seeks to isolate
suppress my questioning
tame my idiosyncrasy
crush my ego
every skeptical synapse of my soul
looks askance
at the submergence
of being "One in the Spirit"
he threatens that
if I leave
his remote mountain hut,
I will lose all awareness
of the Holy Spirit
I never did like the Holy Ghost
to me it is
Hocus Pocus
but
on this far side of the world
from friends and family
with Whom do I evaluate the risk?
with Whom do I walk out of his orbit
and down the mountain?
Who gives me this certainty
when I now sit alone
under a pine tree
in a valley
of the Himalayas
that I am not lost?
Who pours into me
the Grace I feel
streaming from the cathedral sky?
“Parents seek
doctor, engineer or lawyer
for fair-skinned
accomplished daughter
English-educated with
unblemished character
horoscope and full details necessary”
“Brother seeks for sister
divorced with one child
a suitable partner
caste and creed immaterial
substantial dowry
paddy field and
two acres of high land
plus jewelery”
fair-skinned
Western-educated
roaming
daughter, sister
very accomplished
in escaping suitable partners
no encumbrance except herself
seeks.
In the restaurant
amongst the balmy breezes
of the South Indian resort
he makes my choices
easy
calls over the waiter
“Bring this woman the best...”
after dinner
I kick off sandals
dance barefoot
in a silver dress
on the unblemished floor
my head on his shoulder
imagining romantic
ever-afters
I exchange all that
for traveling alone
to the Himalayan mountains
of northern India
for crowded buses
cheap food
and stark lodgings
my fingernails dirty
clothes worn for a week
heavy-booted as a peasant
feet cold from wet snow
I climb slowly
up the steep hillside
unable to go through with
his decision to marry.
On our vacation in India
I buy an ankle bracelet
in the market
the vendor uses pliers
to press the connecting rings
so the chain won't slip off
the amulet
encircles my leg
as if to ward off
our impending breakup
back from the market
I run to him
across the beach
like a child
eager to have him notice
the adornment
he smiles approval
but the bands
grate sand into my legs
when I swim
out into the ocean
silver spikes dig into my skin
I stop in deep water
to break the chain.
We lived among
slender ceramic figures
ivory animals
silk fans
old books
porcelain vases
and red silk poppies
here
in the kitchen
we made coffee
our wok sizzled
we leaned against the counter
gesturing with chopsticks
our bodies came dripping from the bath
now empty porcelain
all gone
now sparsely furnished with Scandinavian
pale wood and earth-colored rug
this place was ours
for a moment in time
we were guests then
as we are now.
The child looks at me
from the newspaper page
she is a newly-appointed
living goddess
chosen for her perfect hair
eyes
teeth
skin
and horoscope
she has proved herself
by spending a night alone
without showing fear
among the heads
of ritually slaughtered
goats and buffaloes
a three-year-old child
carried from her parents' home
to the ancient temple
incarnation of a Hindu deity
she is wrapped in red silk
her hair adorned with red blossoms
her hair is tied up
a third eye painted on her forehead
priests chant sacred hymns
and cascade flowers over her
worshipers will touch their foreheads to her feet
during festivals
she will be carried on a chariot
pulled by devotees
her eyes are dark pools
looking out from her perfect face
as if asking
silently
what in her horoscope
or beauty
condemns her to surrender childhood
and all its rainbow colors
for a prison of red
to become an icon
with reverence instead of family
worshipers instead of friends
a mirror of the Divine
dressed in red
like the blood
of the slaughtered
she will be returned
to her family
only when her body yields
the blood of puberty
and priests seek
the new perfection.
Down from a heavily-trafficked road
the Chinese cemetery
is a silent
hillside city
terraces of granite and marble
gravestones
with photographs hardly weathered
I climb down
as rows of faces
mounted on stone
watch me move
old man, young woman, child
all unmoving
open-eyed
a silent gallery
raising my fear
about to send me fleeing
up the steep slope.
_____________
In this city of dead
I imagine myself the only life
hunted by relentless ghosts
the harsh wasteland
offers no sanctuary
the tombstones
are obstacles to flight
opportunity for ambush
the uninvolved spectators
beyond caring
offer no aid
I entertain the white bleakness
of death.
________________
Row on row of empty niches in the wall
only one is plastered over
and covered with a photograph
a woman tapes a plastic cup
filled with red flowers
to that plaque
over her husband's ashes
a glazed photograph of his face
gazes out
on two people burning candles
in a used soda can
and a silk flower left
in an old medicine bottle.
___________________
Where gravestones
are blackened with age
the inscriptions faint
the portraits in weathered marble
made gentle and mysterious with time
bodies are planted in the earth
sousl looking out
to the misty island mountains.
__________________
Behind the row of monuments
the retaining wall crumbles
moss grows in the cracks
a vine creeps down over mortar
a black and white butterfly
hovers over orange blossoms
ants drag the bodies of dead insects
making traffic patterns on the rock.
When the four pigs are let out
their noses sniff the dirt path
outside their pen
one puts its snout
into the wire cage
thrust in front of him
prodded, he enters
finds the far end tapers
to the shape of his snout
squeals in panic
each pig does the same
investigates
discovers for himself
his own panic
only the last pig
before half-way in
fights his way back out
turning
despite blows of a mallet
climbs half over the cage
turns and turns again
into the blows
rather than into the cage
it is his first and last battle
inevitably
his opponents
trick his head in
shove the rest
the black-trousered woman grins
crinkling leathery skin
showing gold teeth
she and the old man
poke a carrying pole
through the space
between the pig's snout
and the end of the cage
they upend the animal
and set it on the scales
a sagging
pale
and hairy mass of flesh
jammed against the wire cage
by its own weight
its squeal an echo
of each
trapped
doomed
and alone
the pig who fought
is first to be carried away
at least not left
propped against the wall
of its own shed
where young, pink-eared descendants
of boars
grow delicate swirls of hair
above their small eyes.
Chinese peasants
peer through plexiglass
at their ancient ancestors
the mummies
in fetus-curl
or stretched out to the sky
have skin like rusted iron
stark ribs plunging
to taut abdomen
hair sparse and faded
frayed cloth around the loins
feet arched like springs
kept under tension
for thousands of years
toenails yellow as lacquer
mouth a hollow oval
cut from tight-stretched skin
eye sockets webbed over
and opaque
nearby
a blue fire-glazed
ceramic horse
with saddle of orange-red and yellow
its mouth stretching open
silently gallops
out of the past
its eyes ablaze
across the centuries.
The door is a size for dwarves
we pull it closed
against the coming storm
cold, wind, rain outside
inside
the crisscross frame encircles
a floor of quilted bedding
a small hot stove
where we warm our hands
and pour water from the kettle
steaming into cups
sudden thunder
the lights fare out
a young Mongolian
bursts in with candles
they flicker through dust
blown in
under horsehair felt
thick to the touch
protection
against the desert's gale.
On the vast water
of the Yangtze River
distant mountains
raise forest sails
beyond the dipping nets of fishermen
as our boat approaches
a necklace of beads
ivory, gold, ebony
drawn through the water
they enlarge to a line of barges
and slip by
with loads of potash, grain and coal
at night the boat docks
and from the upper decks
we foreigners watch
on the crowded pier
a commotion of bicycles
wooden chests and baskets
under shoulder poles
bending with weighted ends
human figures emerge
and one by one
step onto the gangway
to board the ship
the woman at the gate
hair permed into waves
as if on an evening date
takes tickets
pushes
pulls
grabs a man's shoulder
hurls loud blows
from her angry mouth
swiftly bends to catch a few coins dropped
money we would not think to measure
counted out with such ferocious precision
those of us on the upper deck
live even more sheltered
than does the Chinese child I watch
on the lower deck
held protected
in the padded arms
of its blue-jacketed parent.