How we recoil when the water rises, when software interrupts the news. Who’s in charge here? The thunder last night. The kids saw lightening everywhere. Now, the house quiet, their absence pulled taught, I pace, restless as a dog. CLICK ON THE RECORDING
Oh, we understand our ridiculousness. Our knee socks and plastic bottles strapped to our waists like warriors from the land of mini-vans and family calendars. Our matching jackets. Our lubricants. Our expensive shoes and cheap talk. The watches we buy. All the slaughtered mornings and the final snap of the gun. But run with us…
Oh, hands on bells, your joy brief and ever so slightly disfigured. You stop us with our groceries to wonder. CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDING
Flour, yeast, salt, sky. Three babies tucked into bed and bread rising in the wood stove. Give us this day. CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDING
All hell breaking, and a daughter standing. The angry sky twisting in her painterly arms. (Image and audio courtesy of Tara Bryan, www.tarabryan.com) CLICK ON THE RECORDING
The sky falls, the fire licks. Oh, gentling smoke we are all dancing elephants. CLICK ON THE RECORDING
Morning, minding its business. May two-four debris scattered to the wind. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
The river clears its throat. Shimmies right, then left. The children’s cold fingers pulling at its coat sleeves. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Bent to the sickle and feet in the grain. The whole country moves to the rhythm of the rain. CLICK ON RECORDING TO LISTEN
“The sherpas are alert for ways in which to be of use… their dignity is unassailable, for the service is rendered for its own sake — it is the task, not the employer, that is served. As Buddhists, they know that the doing matters more than the attainment or the reward, that to serve in…
I stumble out of a vintage Mercedes to hunker in the stubble, blend into the background like a roman candle, tape recorder tipped in your general direction. You catch my eye as if to say that this spilling of the fruit is only part of it, the grains under your feet and in the cracks…
The back streets of Bhaktapur run and run: feet in rice, and hands in black clay, the city labours under harvest. Hand-pressed brick posing for the next natural disaster. These girls, elbows linked: their unbreakable chain. CLICK ON RECORDING TO LISTEN
Big shoes to fill, he of the blue eyes and nut brown skin, counting his knuckles for sums and pawing for change. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Two feet past the busy woodpile, Igor’s fury and the stillness that reigned after the trees cracked. The baby restless. The rampage. A bucket and all it could hold. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
This time and these stars and this smoke rising. Your hands on the girl and her hands on stone, the night so black the sound travels years to meet itself at the start. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Plunge and pull, your paddle the best of you, your arms reaching — elbow, wrist, fist — into the black. And the boat cuts on. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Morning: the rise and fall of tiny chests, the tide in them. The old sun going on and on. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Small girl in a clutch of trees scraped knees peeking from a gallumph of rubbers. Her yellow boots big as the world CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
You are knees and curls, a palette of surprise. Rehearsing a way home, your feet too small to carry you. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Feet slicing over the snow, the sky a riot of blue. Lull the babies to the huf-huf of legs pumping, and the dog racing ever onward. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN