Parting, Page 3
John Moncure Wetterau
Massive, mythic, snorting,
overbearing, importuning,
Gods protect, get out
of the way, gold, red,
orange and black,
silver metal doors,
flags, pennants, tassels,
hanging chains, black longhorns
painted on the radiator,
padded steering wheel
in dim fringed interior
high over the hood,
demon truck
carrying goods and hope
through villages,
along gorges, around
blind curves.
Dharamsala
Kamal
Kamal drunk, declaiming
by his brick two-room house,
one up, one under for the cows,
high over the valley.
He drinks his army pension,
works the rest of the month
with his wife and teenaged sons.
“They beat me,” he tells us.
“I haven't eaten in 48 hours;
I have a very bad wife.”
He is stronger than any of them.
His wife is loving. Strange.
He raves into the night
for hours using practiced
dramatic gestures,
pausing to sing, pacing
back and forth.
I asked Mickey what
the Hindi words meant.
“It's all bullshit,” he said.
Yes, Kamal
is acting badly again—
reproachful,
indignant, angry
to the point of violence,
long hands pleading
in the moonlight.
McLeod Ganj
Study of an Oil
A Tibetan mother
pours hot milk into a bowl
held with both hands
by a young boy.
They stand in a dark room
by an open fire,
both warmly dressed—
he in blue shirt and
knee length leather vest,
she in faded red tunic,
long brown skirt and apron.
They are bent toward each other,
intent on not spilling.
Pale light from a window or door
touches the back of his vest,
the top of his hair, her face,
the stream of milk.
Outside, unseen:
mountains, snow,
the biting pure air
of the Himalayas.
signed: Sodhon La 2006.04
McLeod Ganj
Youdon Meets Her Former Roommate
Behind the Japanese Restaurant
After a Long Separation
Standing close,
saying almost nothing,
pure horses, sensing.
Both slim, straight,
twenty years old, Tibetan
long black hair, dark eyes.
Between them, sparkles,
a clear smoke,
as of diamonds.
Gray concrete deck,
a few empty tables,
the mountain
partially obscured by cloud.
McLeod Ganj
Namaste
London, 5 a.m.,
dove & copper,
still,
a hint of rain.
I can board a plane,
but I cannot
leave myself behind.
In India,
a billion people sleep
sharing beds, floors,
makeshift shelters,
sidewalks.
Primary colors
call in the dark;
leopards and snakes
move silently.
In the morning,
on Khanyara Road, a man
covered with soap suds,
sitting on his heels,
bathes from a bucket;
a young woman in a turquoise
kameez sways by
balancing eight bricks on her head;
a group of boys, blue pants,
white shirts, blue ties,
laugh and chatter, arm in arm
on their way to school;
an old woman, stumps for hands,
begs mutely, smiles,
brown eyes glowing;
beneath an umbrella, a quiet man
breaks rock for road fill
using a hand sledge and chisel.
All look at you. No one
is afraid.
You join them,
stepping farther from your
fortress of dreams
with each exchange:
“Namaste.”
“Namaste.”
Two, Then Three
Snow, wind,
slate gray sea,
northeaster coming.
Two crows feed
on frozen sumac.
They fly to a dead spruce,
joined by a third,
facing different directions,
puffing their feathers,
eyes scanning.
One springs up,
a few wing strokes,
a tilt of its head,
soaring across the road.
Two, then three
swerve freely over the marsh,
black trails vanishing,
lightening
the roar of waves.
Peaks Island
Goodbye
Sisters, 94 and 81,
late afternoon sun turns
a small backyard gold and green.
Brown birds flit from fence top
to pine woods and back.
A butterfly pauses.
Death and life—
transparent tapestry
in quiet air,
glittering and splendid.
The next summer
I shoveled the first dirt
on Ad's grave.
Then Rosy's mother died.
We never properly said goodbye,
but it had already been done, there
in Ad's yard in Poulsbo, Washington,
three lives come
to a curtain of sun
on a fence.
Lunch at Anthony's
Below sidewalk level,
between a movie rental business
and a music store,
blues harp & keyboard,
easygoing jazz,
accountants, secretaries,
mailmen laughing
at small things,
smells of eggplant Parmesan,
marinara sauce.
A few tables.
A takeout line.
You have to know
about the place
to be here.
Portland
Hoot's Triumph
In front of The News Shop, glistening,
green, chrome, black leather,
throbbing at rest—
Hoot's Triumph,
ready for the road,
5:30, a summer morning,
cool and gray.
Hoot finished his coffee,
held one hand up,
revved the bike twice,
and took off.
He was heading for Denver,
bringing his wife home
after a separation. What,
1500 miles from Woodstock?
Earsplitting. He accelerated
flat out past the green, around
the corner at a 45 degree lean,
down the long hill, shifting
all the way.
We listened, mouths open;
he must have been going a hundred
at the bottom.
“There goes Hoot,” someone said,
finally.
That was in '66—Vietnam,
lies, waste, the cultural partitioning,
the beginning of the decline
of the U.S.A. Worse now.
/> But, we can rebuild.
Hoot got his wife back. And,
as they say in the mountains,
“He did it right.”
Lion’s Mane
Our loves,
by death
and divergence,
one by one
we lose them.
Each leaves
a color
loosely woven
with the others,
astride
our naked shoulders,
a lion’s mane—
precious, radiant,
with us
to the end.
American Buddhas
At Hodgman's Frozen Custard:
two Harleys, side by side
pointing opposite directions,
front wheels nosing inwards,
gleaming spokes, bulging fenders,
pin-striped fuel tanks,
riders leaning back
on mighty thrones under
a summer evening sky,
300-pounders,
shy as bears,
broad whiskery faces,
licking raspberry cones.
New Gloucester,
Maine
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overbearing, importuning,
Gods protect, get out
of the way, gold, red,
orange and black,
silver metal doors,
flags, pennants, tassels,
hanging chains, black longhorns
painted on the radiator,
padded steering wheel
in dim fringed interior
high over the hood,
demon truck
carrying goods and hope
through villages,
along gorges, around
blind curves.
Dharamsala
Kamal
Kamal drunk, declaiming
by his brick two-room house,
one up, one under for the cows,
high over the valley.
He drinks his army pension,
works the rest of the month
with his wife and teenaged sons.
“They beat me,” he tells us.
“I haven't eaten in 48 hours;
I have a very bad wife.”
He is stronger than any of them.
His wife is loving. Strange.
He raves into the night
for hours using practiced
dramatic gestures,
pausing to sing, pacing
back and forth.
I asked Mickey what
the Hindi words meant.
“It's all bullshit,” he said.
Yes, Kamal
is acting badly again—
reproachful,
indignant, angry
to the point of violence,
long hands pleading
in the moonlight.
McLeod Ganj
Study of an Oil
A Tibetan mother
pours hot milk into a bowl
held with both hands
by a young boy.
They stand in a dark room
by an open fire,
both warmly dressed—
he in blue shirt and
knee length leather vest,
she in faded red tunic,
long brown skirt and apron.
They are bent toward each other,
intent on not spilling.
Pale light from a window or door
touches the back of his vest,
the top of his hair, her face,
the stream of milk.
Outside, unseen:
mountains, snow,
the biting pure air
of the Himalayas.
signed: Sodhon La 2006.04
McLeod Ganj
Youdon Meets Her Former Roommate
Behind the Japanese Restaurant
After a Long Separation
Standing close,
saying almost nothing,
pure horses, sensing.
Both slim, straight,
twenty years old, Tibetan
long black hair, dark eyes.
Between them, sparkles,
a clear smoke,
as of diamonds.
Gray concrete deck,
a few empty tables,
the mountain
partially obscured by cloud.
McLeod Ganj
Namaste
London, 5 a.m.,
dove & copper,
still,
a hint of rain.
I can board a plane,
but I cannot
leave myself behind.
In India,
a billion people sleep
sharing beds, floors,
makeshift shelters,
sidewalks.
Primary colors
call in the dark;
leopards and snakes
move silently.
In the morning,
on Khanyara Road, a man
covered with soap suds,
sitting on his heels,
bathes from a bucket;
a young woman in a turquoise
kameez sways by
balancing eight bricks on her head;
a group of boys, blue pants,
white shirts, blue ties,
laugh and chatter, arm in arm
on their way to school;
an old woman, stumps for hands,
begs mutely, smiles,
brown eyes glowing;
beneath an umbrella, a quiet man
breaks rock for road fill
using a hand sledge and chisel.
All look at you. No one
is afraid.
You join them,
stepping farther from your
fortress of dreams
with each exchange:
“Namaste.”
“Namaste.”
Two, Then Three
Snow, wind,
slate gray sea,
northeaster coming.
Two crows feed
on frozen sumac.
They fly to a dead spruce,
joined by a third,
facing different directions,
puffing their feathers,
eyes scanning.
One springs up,
a few wing strokes,
a tilt of its head,
soaring across the road.
Two, then three
swerve freely over the marsh,
black trails vanishing,
lightening
the roar of waves.
Peaks Island
Goodbye
Sisters, 94 and 81,
late afternoon sun turns
a small backyard gold and green.
Brown birds flit from fence top
to pine woods and back.
A butterfly pauses.
Death and life—
transparent tapestry
in quiet air,
glittering and splendid.
The next summer
I shoveled the first dirt
on Ad's grave.
Then Rosy's mother died.
We never properly said goodbye,
but it had already been done, there
in Ad's yard in Poulsbo, Washington,
three lives come
to a curtain of sun
on a fence.
Lunch at Anthony's
Below sidewalk level,
between a movie rental business
and a music store,
blues harp & keyboard,
easygoing jazz,
accountants, secretaries,
mailmen laughing
at small things,
smells of eggplant Parmesan,
marinara sauce.
A few tables.
A takeout line.
You have to know
about the place
to be here.
Portland
Hoot's Triumph
In front of The News Shop, glistening,
green, chrome, black leather,
throbbing at rest—
Hoot's Triumph,
ready for the road,
5:30, a summer morning,
cool and gray.
Hoot finished his coffee,
held one hand up,
revved the bike twice,
and took off.
He was heading for Denver,
bringing his wife home
after a separation. What,
1500 miles from Woodstock?
Earsplitting. He accelerated
flat out past the green, around
the corner at a 45 degree lean,
down the long hill, shifting
all the way.
We listened, mouths open;
he must have been going a hundred
at the bottom.
“There goes Hoot,” someone said,
finally.
That was in '66—Vietnam,
lies, waste, the cultural partitioning,
the beginning of the decline
of the U.S.A. Worse now.
/> But, we can rebuild.
Hoot got his wife back. And,
as they say in the mountains,
“He did it right.”
Lion’s Mane
Our loves,
by death
and divergence,
one by one
we lose them.
Each leaves
a color
loosely woven
with the others,
astride
our naked shoulders,
a lion’s mane—
precious, radiant,
with us
to the end.
American Buddhas
At Hodgman's Frozen Custard:
two Harleys, side by side
pointing opposite directions,
front wheels nosing inwards,
gleaming spokes, bulging fenders,
pin-striped fuel tanks,
riders leaning back
on mighty thrones under
a summer evening sky,
300-pounders,
shy as bears,
broad whiskery faces,
licking raspberry cones.
New Gloucester,
Maine
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