I Remember Walking By You (By Jennifer Lee Thompson)
Jennifer Lee Thompson graciously allowed me to share her poem on my blog. The world needs more Jennifer poems.
I Remember Walking by You
5-11-15
I remember well
walking into Samagaun
after the “real”
gradual flat of sandy plain
guarded, precious yak field
of rock surrounds…
women carry cut trees in baskets,
baby yaks outside the wall,
we walk by bulls
past the soccer game
and school girls not in uniform,
laughing together and holding on.
The woman in her rough, gray dress,
old apron a custom
before the colorful
stripped ones.
Hair gray too
like her rough dress
like the mani stones
like the clouds happen to be now…
moves the prayer wheels
fast with her old hands.
Upright, she is attuned
to this repetitive movement
believing in prayers to wind…
this way of turning copper.
Sarah in her red rain cover,
the grayness of slim figure,
day turning,
together share an image,
clicked in my mind’s eye,
of arrival.
To the Tashi Delek Guest house
over water stones
and gutters moving snow melt
with ever present yak dung
fresh and day-dried,
to nostril
and select footstep.
We enter this town of built rock
blinding in color and form
to the mountain from which it came.
Our slight, unbelieving prayer
of our own
to see Manaslu Peak tomorrow
put in a demanded hope…
we have come all this way…
but this mountain
on its own terms
will always be
and disregards us.
We feel this disregard
and love the mountain for it.
For isn’t that its nature after all?
Tumbling to sky
not looking back one moment,
only going forward in geologic time
Reaching?
So we settle in
to many shades of gray.
The young Tibetan mother
only in red
plays with her four young children
surrounding her
on the barnyard ground
on straw-matted blanket
next to our rooftop lunch table.
There is joy there
next door
in the dirt and tenderness.
A young, oldest girl’s eyes pleading,
asking for something small
saying hello
with eyes and shyness.
Later with two Swiss women
They make a small Chorten
out of the infinity of glacial rocks
round and flat,
placing many delicate movements
together with shredded prayer flags.
It stays!
Reveling in its own thoughtful
care and Balance.
Sunshine for two hours on Dishing Lama’s
loom movements and slow teaching.
I sit by her side.
Four hours should do it!
Warp and weave,
I learn her method
by sight and
by staying with it.
Colorful yarn balls
tumble out on trail…
somehow these colors
make the Tibetan carpet
by hooks, pulls, smooth wood
and brown hand…
make the age-old inscription
in new, laughing colors.
Evening,
stone-cold
comes early.
Waking before midnight
to five men singing Nepali songs…
their harmony
adjunct to laughter and drink.
Inside the singing night
the Big Dipper
on this side of the world,
pours up, this month
sky into other dark sky.
Later a Lone Wolf calls
and the town dogs
take up their posts.
Later
I won’t be able to drink milk tea
without sugar,
remembering
the hot, thick syrup of a tea
on Uttam’s patio.
That syrup
holding connection,
promise
welcome
and it’s more than good
you are alive and OK.
For one day the Earth
will take it’s complete fold
upon us…
we are in her great palm-of-a-hand anyway,
riding on the Joy
of the green and blue Earth.
So why not?
have sugar in milk tea,
sit by a loom for a day,
follow young friends up a mountain,
thinking I can do it – I can.
Jennifer L. Thompson
Jennifer learning the loom from Dishing Lama