Departures

The monks gave us a bag of Thai oranges
Before we left for the States.

Next time we come, we’ll have learned more Lao,
We promise.

They promise there will be more to show us the next time.

Sitting outside the Khop Jai Deu
Waiting for our bus to come

Elvis is crooning “Return to Sender”
Because there’s no such number,
And no such home.

I took a photo of the fountain
Next to the Scandinavian Bakery,
Tuk-tuk drivers loitering nearby.

Handing them some fruit,
They ask, “How long are you staying in Laos?”

And I reply,
“This is our last day.”

The sun looks like it could be peeled wide open
While I take a bite of a giant orange,

Trying to wring out a last memory from this light,
Wondering when the King’s song is ever going to end

The scent of citrus on my hand
Sinks deeply past my bones,
Trying to harden into an anchor

The shape of a kind heart.

Beginnings
Depending on the tradition, you hear:
There was nothing, or there was chaos.
No time, no space, not even a single atom

Not a ray of light, a whisper,
A scent of papaya or rivers.

Not a body, not a soul.
Not a ghost of a dok champa

Or even a memory

Of a touch in the darkness,
Or a taste of a home-cooked meal from

A tiny garden in the window
Of a dreaming woman

Asleep amid her books and clothes,
Her brushes and tools.

In the beginning, though, there
Was no hate, no war, no anger,

No constant return to life after life
Because of our ignorance and lusts.

Still, in the future, I’ll look back with no regrets
At a world of fires and love, of ice and hope.

My mouth opens in song
In the brief time upon Earth I have,

Creating amid destruction.
Growing against silence.

An Acorn For My Love From Vientiane
How far from our Bodhi tree
Today we live!

Finding shade among foreign leaves:
Some shaped like hands,

Others, grains of khao
Or sweet watermelon seeds.

Lifting an acorn in our light,
The creative see a tree in the making.
An artist, a forest sees.

But our greatest artists?

They see whole stories, epics
Of love and life, dreams and hope unfurling
Like the fine jade sinh from the legs

Of a royal beauty
Meeting her heart’s match for the first time

Within the laughing shade of that forest
Alive with the magic

Of a single unpredictable acorn
As amazing as even our distant Bodhi.