'if'...

if only i feared

if only i feared death
the sky would not darken
if i had no word
the grass would brown
if i had thistles in my mouth
the wind blown seeds would land
if i had freedom in my heart
the great flood would not come
if i opened my eyes
the sky would darken.

- See: Writings

:: note :: ... nothing to note ...

Seoul Writings III

Seoul Writings III 

 1. Doksu To Labor Pomp & Protest 

28/7/09 

We catch the last moments of the splendid changing of the guards at Doksu Palace. Colourful flags of Dragon & Phoenix snap in the procession.

Protesters camp outside city hall while bored police stand ready with sheilds.A long white proclamation banner heralds discontent. 

From the human rights office hangs a stark multi-storied banner demanding the Premier fulfill his election promise to make Seoul more hadicapped accessible. 

A stately building surrounded by wooden benches & a spacious courtyard is the Ministry of Labor. Two mythical beasts guard the entrance & Harubang watches over the parkade. 

The gorgeous night sky illuminates the tranquil clouds. For the sake of memory peace reigns for all the silhouetted foot soldiers of the night. 

 2. Insects on Line 6. 

29/7/09 

Have you ever had a huge snake wrap itself around you or held a blue silvered beetle in your hand or watch a gecko climb up your arm. I have and wonder how the snake, beetle & gecko feel. Did they feel muscles tighten & tense or a tickling of the skin or a slight moisture? Would they ask if I am rich or do I miss steak? Do they have dreams? Would they like to be a broadcaster or a scientist? Would they smile & wave goodbye from a crowded Metro car. They did. 

 3. Pansori 

30/7/09 

Climbing four floors of sweat shops we enter a new world on the final fifth floor. Unfolding is a House Concert sposored by Korea Seodosori Music Research & Preserve, Inc. Ass. Traditional drums and instruments are randomly displayed. A collection of pots fills the walls of one side wing & chests, hats, & traditioal furniture are displayed In the other side wing. The main room is open with a floral screen backdrop surrounded by ninety floor chairs. We are in a living shrine. A twelve year old girl begins the concert. Her intense concentration, precise practised fan gestures & gently forming tonseong cry bring tears to my eyes - this is the river of culture. The evening is precious. The flow between performer, drummer & audience is a joyous exchange of focus, laughter, clapping, sing-a- long & rapture. A considerable display of technique transforms into the direct energy of sharing probing the space where tradition & the intensely private artist associations broaden into meditations on the everlasting themes of the human condition - love, life & death. 

 4. Pyeongchon / Elder Brother 

31/7/09 

A ride to the outskirts of Seoul exposes the relentless pace of the inhabitants of this metropolis. At Anyang we are met with a unique blend of casual, quiet dignity & respect. The bamboo rice meal & the various delicate seafood dishes suits the occassion. Afterwards, as is my habit, I gaze intently outside the taxi & Metro windows like a knife cutting through water (possibly to clean the knife) searching to discipher a code for this inner disarray & carefully inspect domains of the frozen heart. I grind my teeth on the ten thousand poem stones, as is my habit.

 "We all wish 

to become something. 

You to me and I to you 

wish to become an unforgettable gaze."

 from Flower by Kim Chun-Su (trans. by Kim Jong-Gil) 

 5. Yumyeongsan I 

1/8/09 

 Night drive on the highways winding to the top. Backtrack as pavement crumbles & collapses. It is easy to backtrack with a will to meet. Tents on tents jostle for space like Metro passengers at rush hour. Walking the path four seek refuge. We stir the water with rocks splashing our desires. We squat as patient companion frogs full of anticipation. We plant seeds guided by the forest caretaker's soft words. We call for good spirits through blades of grass. We float our dreams of innocence in shallow stream pools. At night we dream our dreams of experience. The future swings lightly. 

 6. Yumyeongsan II 

2/8/09

Wake up. Wake up souds the plaintive cry. It is time to run under the bridge. Back & forth a hundred times they cross like an exorcist expelling hungry ghosts. The water is cold & the deep valleys catch the wind. Later the Shaman teacher laughs & sings for joy. He is happy to be surrouded by friends. We drink to each others prosperity. 

 7. Seoul Plaza 

3/8/09 

 Love is a poweful addiction. I danced with the National Changgeuk Company of Korea. A moment in their performance of 'Romeo & Juliet' actors move out into the audience to gather participants for the festival where the two lovers first meet. As sky meets earth I spread my arms like wings to lightly tread the grass. Then make a bridge for a star crossed lover to cross - she smiles. The night lights of the sky scrapers carve a plaza of Pansori tragedy Tear the sheet of life to feel the division. For whom do we weep? 

8. Children's Grand Park / Youra 

4/8/09 

 The splendour of youth. Carefree enthusiasm with knowing sensibilities. Ride life to the extreme. Don't stop. Repeat the good times. Make friends. Say yes to your guardians. Play hard, play serious, play fun & play often. Have dreams. Ask questions but more importantly watch closely. Look for the new. Remember the old. Help each other. Make today the best day of your life.

Seoul Writings II

Seoul Writings II

1.
Gyeongbok Palace
20/7/09

Six-Fold Screen of the Sun, Moon and Five Peaks.
Eight-Fold Screen of Peonies and Rocks.
Ten-Fold Screen of Shelves Full of Books.
Faint sounds of Royal Court Music dispell past affairs of guilt & torment like visionary footsteps echoing in the cavernous hollow Palace building new consciousness of the old.

2.
Seonyu Island
21/7/09

Frogs random croaking tickles the strolling couples amourous desires.
Gentle waterfalls soothe the weight of time wrinkles on faces of three older woman friends.
Men gamble & fish freely in the wind playing to catch treasures of leisure.
We descend steps disappearing into the Han under the arced bridge sweeping all cares to the warm night sky on heavenly swings.

3.
Seowon Temple in Maputo
22/7/09

Climb to the top
not to look down
or out over
but look on
the golden hand.

Prayer gesture
Imploring tomorrow
for yesterday's gratitude.

I saw the newsroom today.
What a lucky man.

4.
Odusan Unification Observatory
23/7/09

At the bottom of the escalater waits a quiet figure. He will share his home & guide us through ancestral rites with hopes & desires of future respect & dignity.

We peer across the golden face of Buddha & the serene Imjin river to distant lands - "Are you happy?" she asks. Please sing.

5.
Missed at Gangseo
24/7/09

Auntie while looking at photos laughed so hard her belly button fell off.

Neice grabbed it & threw it high behind her. A fly flew after it but her uncle got the belly button first - unfotunately he swallowed the fly.

Not even all the tricks, dances, drumming and spectacle of the evening airirang party could release the fly.
They even ate sweet cake but nothing worked.

Finally Uncle offered niece the top cherry thinking it to be most desireable. Biting into the sour cherry neice squeezed her face so tight her belly button shot out & the fly flew out of uncle to catch neice's belly button but missed.
Instead it bounced into Auntie.

Niece grabbed Auntie's navel from uncle's pocket & pushed it onto herself. Everyone was happy even though Neice & Auntie switched belly buttons.

6.
Foot of Daemosan / Ping pong
25/7/09

The other you face is a cautious player who accepts your inexperience for the art of the beginner is finding the rhythm of action in the space between. Allow the ball or person to simply come & meet.

We wander late along Yangjae stream the air fresh from seeping water of the rainy season floods. Catching the last metro, not all the way home we spill out into the Saturday night crush & walk till tiredness.

Paths never end. We must choose our distance & open to the space between knowing inevitably the journey chooses us.

7.
Taehakno
26/7/09

Carved into the rock of a public fountain at Taehakno are some masks of Samdaenori like some forgotten shrine - the water has run dry. Only the old & destitute stop to rest. The statue of commerated Korean patriot Kim Sang Ok stands guard in the park.

Cotton candy, shiny trinkets, hat sellers, blaring music, park buskers & posters for the latest international glittzy musicals are the distractions of today.
We escape the sudden rain to sip on green tea feeling the past abandoned.

Water flows. "... tears like the vaporous steam forming on a cooling glass well up in my eyes." (Yi Sang from Child)

8.
27/7/09

An older couple, young of spirit, runs the neighbourhood - shop. The tiny space, barely large enough for three, bursts with chaotic order.

They ply their trade bridging the past with the modern midst fading certificates, ancient carving tools, an old computer and copier, wooden shelves cluttered with papers, a phone with oversize buttons, a wooden filing cabinent & a case filled with various brands of cigarettes which seem to be the only money making part of their business.

Our first visit was to obtain a family seal. A cordial welcome accompanied with smiles, politeness & curiosity made for a pleasant meeting of traditional restraint.

The second visit required scanning documents onto a memory stick. I watched as the man skillfully worked an elderly woman's seal teaching her how to twist & pull the top with a joke & a laugh.

The women meanwhile worked with careful efficiency and concentration on the computer without the slightest betrayal that this technology may be new for her. She presented us with juice as we waited. A few more personal exchanges lifted the formality to familiarity.

One muggy evening returning home at days end our paths crossed on the street. We bowed to each other with genuine smiles of recognition.

The third visit was a late night visit to make copies. An outbreak of animated discussion transformed into an english lesson. The man was alone. Supper was cooking on the hotplate. He shoved it underneath the shelf apologizing for the smell explaining times were tough and ordering food everyday was now impossible. He shifted handfuls of paper off the copier and engaged in playful banter.

Before I knew it he was searching through the filing cabinet drawers pulling out his english folder. The top of his notebook read "Welcome to our English class." He was attending the free language class offered by the community.

He peppered my wife with questions pointing to phrases, asking for help and finally turned to me requesting to hear a native speakers inflection. He laboriously repeated over & over: "Everything demands some work." He stumbled on the 's' & slurred the words but I marvelled at his persistence.

We suggested he use this phrase while encouraging his son who was studying hard to switch to a higher status university for his final fourth year.

The woman arrived. Surveying the scene she reached into a hidden fridge bidding us quite insistently to accept a bag full of seasonal melons. Eventually we paid a nominal fee for the copies. As we left both of them suggested we come whenever we like even if we have no work.

Embrdded In this city of high octane energy & ambition is a timeless oasis.

" I'll go back to heaven again.
At the end of my outing to this beautiful world
I'll go back and say: that was beautiful. . . . "
- Ch'õn Sang-Pyõng

(translated from the Koean by Brother Anthony of Taizė)

Seoul writings

1.
Dangsan: Day One 
12/7/09

the green & wood
embrace & edge
tongues of form
reach for expectant joy

2.
Dangsan: Skies open 
13/7/09

Hard rain through night.
Tiny districts folded within each other like streams pouring souls to the Han.

3.
Mapo-gu, Sungsan-1-dong (Family visit)  
14/7/09

Rabbit wanted to eat tiger.
Brother tiger had been kind 
showing pictures of when they were babies.
Instead rabbit climbed his mothers back
& clung tightly most of the night.

4.
Insa-dong  (Inner district)
15/7/09

Shadow birds converge on blue pots 
as red women divulge secret worlds.
The trickster monk cries "Come, come hold the paper." Sketches a show - we are all poor artists.

5.
Insa-dong  (Inner district) Part 2
16/7/09

Be free whisper all the quiet places of beauty.
We are serious & socially responsible.
We  scream in tender silence our love for our community.
We are the outliers.
Share the dream.

Outside people jostle for every inch in the heat.

6.
North Korean Studies (Gyongnam)
17/7/09

Books, books & books with wings. 
Refugees in order. 
Where's number 23?
Hands of the blind 
anticipates building 
memoirs of flight.
Do you study to forget?
The night dreamers never forget.

7.
Inchon & Wolmi Islands
18/7/09

The loving pre-teen & pre-old spirits 
welcome us through the islands.
The caring brother & sister's hands 
guide passages from ancient parks to ocean shores.
Gulls dance truth & reconciliation 
on the sea breeze remembering the napalm & strafing. 
Give thanks with paper crane in pocket & shik hae in backpack.   

8.
KoreaHouse Sijo

At foot of Namsan mountain family of twenty feasts.
One of the six martyred ministers watches warily.
Heat of day cools hidden passions blessing youngest sister.
 

ChokecherryTree

. . . the tree missed most . . . a decade ago a magnificent aged chokecherry tree filled the backyard . . . had always thought chokecherries grew on bushes but this was a huge tree . . . at the end of august each year three full days were set aside to scale the limbs and branches to pluck the tree clean . . . a joyous solitary act accomplished with song and summer reflection . . . buckets & buckets of chokecherries transformed into over forty gallons of chokecherry wine by christmas . . . the wine making was passed on to me by my father . . . one summer the tree fell sick . . . no fruit . . . leaves shrivelled and the trunk split . . . what followed was a painful removal and burning . . . next summer I left . . . the bottles that once contained the wine are reused . . . they form a base for the heads of the puppet making project . . . the hands pick raspberries now when visiting my mother . . . the memory has that same bittersweet ‘choke’ of the chokecherry . . . traces left in this cycle of retrieval, recording and reassembling . . . the tree missed most . . .

AfterWorld

Travelling Questions&Answers in Wilds/WaterWays

AfterWorld

The Temple

The old one sings.
The old wanderer,
on the edge
of civilization,
leans against
an oriental vase
and sings in solitude
outside of time.

The seer
on the stone
sings from the
other world.
Sings a
flamed song
with authority
of mind
and memory
about regeneration.

Sings a song of sight.

The cascading white
baby’s breath,
the dried miniture
red roses,
and the two
tall peacock
feathers
listen.

Bathe seven times
at the threshold.
Sleep. Awake.
Sleep. Awake.
Step internal
into the external
beyond.
The dead escape
through the jade disc.
See the middle,
immanental,
transcend
the precise
empty
prescence.

A sudden revelation.

Do not forget
the beginning.
No violence.
No birth passages.
No pregnant potentiality.
No fertile gateway.
No map.
Do not travel north
to property woman,
known by her
curly grey hair,
who promises riches
if only you hear
her child cry.
Remember
the warning.
Bear trap
off the trail.

Silence pours
between the verses.
Flowing, glowing, blowing.
The sparks of light within
may be fanned into flame
flame into fire
fire into star
a star closer into sun
& the sun
moves behind
the mountain.

The palm
transforms
the silence
clapping,
clapping,
clapping.
Listen.

The staff
taps searching
for words,
deeds and
utterances.

The rod
pierces
the darkness
to set
in order.

Enter.

interlude:the snake

Travelling Questions&Answers in Wilds/WaterWays

Interlude/The Snake

A wrapped staff pokes and prods. Checking for support.
Gathering shells, sea weed and rings for unknown reasons.
The ever present bear lumbers about at a good distance.
The blue opens and behind the face of the rock wall,
algae stalagites drip porous green on slimy rock.
Sunlight dances to the music of the tidal pools.
Other worldly craters and black lava like embedded
chunks, perfectly shaped balls, form a crude circle.
The wrist wrapping, snapping colours of blue, yellow and green
tame nothing but excite the spirit. A grey spotted sea lion lazily
approaches.

Pause.

Long green grass floats. The snake splashes a rainbow mist.
The undulations peel away skin to the silent ullalations.
The watersheds beckon. Be careful of the trickster squalls.
Fall into tidewater. The shells break. Departing soaked the
whipping mist and cold rain chills to the bone. Sea pups wave
goodbye. Touch the purple sea urchin. Let the stars recognize
the depth. One door is all you need to enter

SalmonRun

Travelling Questions&Answers in Wilds/WaterWays
Day 4 - Vancouver Island, British Columbia
SalmonRun

Snaps alive in salty wind. Orange jelly eggs.

On the beach.
Breathe the waves.
Turn back and listen to the roar.
Run the washed, pebble strewn coast line.
Wash inside. Wash outside. Touch nothing. Build endurance.
Sweep west and east and west again. Listen. Take time.
Dance the spine, backbone of invisible cities.
A bright sunflower brilliant light shines.
A place comes.

Smile. You are invisible.
It is good to be strong.

Prepare to cross over. Other worlds wait.
At the portal offer seven salmon berries.
They are bitter this early summer.

The night brought apocalyptic dreams of vast
technological landscapes, desolate cities,
wireless power poles crossing endless empty
asphalt highways and wind catchers
stagnant standing the propellors still.

I awake heart racing - need water.
Surging waves leap the sky.
Gravel chatters in cold rain.

Stagger out, shake off the wetness.
It is written: “ripple, eddie, chops & swells washouts and turbulence
some holes are ‘keepers’, they won’t let you in.”

The ravens grumble.
“Yes you can see.
Yes you have remembered.
Can you face the face.”

EagleEye

Travelling Questions&Answers in Wilds/WaterWays
Day Three: Cultus Lake, British Columbia
EagleEye

The jay vanishes letting me know I am watched.

Gold plunges the lake by ancient cedar’s dangling tips.
I linger on the rock washed edge.
Footstepping warm water.
Three tiny steamlets empty shock cold,
below the surface.
Still wind over the lake.

Eye: (soundlessly) Do you see me?

The musican’s hand touches the edge of a volcano.
Rumbles, shakes and eruptions belch green yellow.
Funnels and lightning everywhere.
Volcano lady pointed up to three volcanoes in a line.
He ran and ran and ran into the storm along the shore.
Three unseen though visible light paintings remain.

Eye: (sighing) Do you remember me?

The actor feels his pulse
detecting no movement.
Undresses under the ancient cedar.
The temptation is to seek advice
from the dangling branches.
Lake listen to the coffin or canoe.

Leave a bundle in the damp, crowded air.
Wade in marking place.
Something stirs in the calm.
Just for a moment gliding under the skin.
Lurking. Algae grab and pull.
Suddenly the body washes ashore
like a massive log we name driftwood.

Flee over small, sharp, broken, black gravel.
Run. Shiver. Dress. Morning passes. Leaf falls.

Eagle Eye: (blinks) . . .

Wren or was it the Robin who smiled at the story
of the falling and rising mists over Cultis Lake.
The eye blinked.

“Yes, the eagle blinks spaces which enter other worlds.”

When I first came, that night a year ago, the blue heron
stood majestic, inscrutable and respectful.
Then lifted into graceful flight over the furious water.

Your brooding is known.

Fly high

Travelling Questions&Answers in Wilds/WaterWays
Day Two - West of Calagary, Alberta
After the Storm Before the Bear

The voice stands wrapped & quivering.

The milky Bow River washes orange.
Fast fed from glacial run-off,
after a night of thunder and sheets of rain,
the feet warm the ice cold current
waving east.

Tiny strawberries clothe the path to the water.
Three cricket exo-skeletons close in the eye.
A delicate flower disppears soundlessly into the forest
where mirrored orange traces rise in lush poppy hearts.

Shiny black bear halts all in her bath.
The cub blissful and gentle protected sniffs.
I’ve seen this bear once briefly before dusk
running the waves amoung heavy snowed cedars
dripping wet on a brilliant morning in Manning Park.

No need for food.
Nourishment is found.
Thank you for the chantrelles.

What do you want to know?

The old goat
on the craggy rock ledge
moves his head abruptly.
Despite blended grey silver grey
allows himself to be seen.

What do you know?

What do you know?
I ask silently.
Don’t tell me stranger.
I know you as mountain creature.
What do you know?

The stellar jay startles me and laughs,
beak stuffed full of bread decoying from tree to tree.

“No such thing as a free meal!”

Raven screams oracles into the tropical green.
Visit the temple of accumulated fragrance.
Share place with water striders and dragonflies
as they float and skim the surface.
Skunk cabbage pods leave drum mallets.
Elderberries intoxicate beckoning into a world of black mystery.

I step high to the west
wanting to soar high.
Higher.
High to tighten the green.
She can’t be lost.
The grizzly leaves teeth markers.
The old ways are practiced.
We have much higher to go and even further
to descend into the night.
Dark spirit catcher and wind
bring mystery eyes and sleep.

Fly high.

Volcano

Travelling Questions&Answers in Wilds/WaterWays
Day One - West of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Unfurling the red.
A gentle snap.
You ‘re at the well.

Are you awake?

Forget, let all drop, abandon shyness.
Water pours through gravel and heat waves.
From a distant swing
the call squeaks a vibrating past memory.

Are you thirsty?

The crows remain.
Follow father’s black blood line
back to grandmother.
Past the pass,
behind the Crow,
where mountain lions cross
and mushrooms flourish.

Not time to mine the black coal
or mime false black diamonds of youth.
Let sweet mists disappear the dams
and resevoirs of Old Man River.
Leave behind the glorious foothills
of Pincher Creek and Head Smashed In.

Tradition longs for past wanderings.
Pass the past,
behind the Crow,
where mountain lions crossed
and mushrooms flourished.

Yes I am awake.

Yes I am thirsty.

The delicate doe stretches
beginning her solitary twilight foraging.

:: comment :: ... this writing and the next six days will document a journey form praire to coast ... a physical map and an inner process ... a time shortly before the death of my father ...

Implicit Stillness

Implicit Stillness voices 
the passing into ourselves
lie in deep rapture 
sleeping in revelations 
creating a grace of seeing 
and listening for 
an ecstasy of understanding

being and time 
white roses 
rising through 
flesh

Heartstreams

Unless the Heartstreams towards light
when the wedges drive into nowhere 
the sleepscraps plague 
and the needshards implant 
like dark buttresses of the lateworld
despite forced ripe disappearance

Look

Look, Look 
don't squint 

the radiant dust darkens to gray the sky 
the dry skin cracks and bleeds 
the stranger whispers endlessly repeating again & again in the cycles of time

we are told 
back then 
lest we forget 
dust in the sky 
dust in the eye 
don't squint against the prayer & blasphemy 

who was it that died coughing