OK, so some poems have been finding a home outside of this blog in the weekly compilations published by Via Negativa. Thank you, Dave Bonta, for including my work. You can find them here:
Part 39: Poetry Digest 2023: Week 12
Part 41: Poetry Digest 2023: Weeks 13-14
Interlude 34 (Part 42.1): Poetry Digest 2023: Week 15
Also this week, a new poem again in an interlude post. This one will be Part 43.1. It is a memory from a trip to Sikkim in the far north of India, in the lap of the Himalayas. It belongs to the same year as Part 43. And yes, this is all turning into a rambling travelogue that is on a journey of its own.
Part 43.1
Islands of stubborn snow cling to barren,
brown slopes, although it is May. But we
are 15000 feet up in YumeSamDong, a
soft grey churning between certain mirage
and uncertain sky, the river below us, curling
around its frozen self. Body and mind adjust
to the strange silence, the biting cold, the
thin air. This is what we do best. Adapt. Cope.
Create yet another normal. Till the story
becomes ordinary. Till the nausea settles
and the remote prospect comes back
into focus, one surreal edge at a time. I
learnt how to defer grief. Just today. Just
this one thing. Then tomorrow. Then the
next. Those are familiar guard rails. Being
this high. This far away. This impossible. This
can fill a moment. The rest can wait. Like it
does. Even when it doesn’t. Fill one hour.
One more. Another. Then there may be
yaks grazing in the valley with the purple
primroses and rhododendrons laughing,
wet with rain, gashes of colour against
persistent monochrome. Snowmelt rushes
down from a peak unknown, each obstacle
creating a new waterfall. The past is not
one thing. Memory is not one thing. How
tenderly we hide our pain from perfection.
How cleverly we fence our lives. How readily
the truth slips away… how quickly the
light changes up here in the mountains.
(Sikkim, India)
A story in many unequal parts, some missing 
Such wonderful descriptions of the physical landscape! It sounds breathtakingly beautiful.
Regarding the mental landscape, I have discovered recently that old grief, hidden and deferred – even for many years – must eventually be experienced. Actually I thought I did so, fully, at the time, but I look back now and realise that, no, at a certain point I put it away so as to look after family and practical matters. And now, here it all is, my new – or newly acknowledged – companion. Perhaps your greater self-awareness will be a blessing!
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The state of Sikkim shares borders with Nepal, Bhutan and the Tibet Autonomous Region, quite beautiful there. Self-awareness is a double-edged sword though… it helps one get through some processes, but makes it impossible to accept outside analysis or help or comfort. I’d advise my younger self to grieve then and there, loudly and valiantly and be done with the damn thing!! But then! 🙂
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and congratulations to you as well on your publications. another very interspective piece… your journey runs deep. dealing with grief is often a life long process, i don’t know that the deepest wounds ever fully heal. some grief can hide in a forgot corner of the mind, and then strike years down the line, i recently experience that myself. your poem reflects all of that very well, direct and delicate, that’s what i notice about your work, it is direct and delicate… always enjoy the read and well done
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Thank you, Phillip. I agree- the deepest don’t heal, perhaps we learn to cope with them better over time. But yes, grief strikes unexpectedly..strangely at times. And yet we carry on!
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oh, and i forget to say, love those images, gorgeous! i live in the rocky mountain (western north america) those images look like home sweet home to me!
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Thank you… Have seen enough on the internet and in movies to know that is a beautiful part of the world… I’ve been around New England, sadly didn’t get enough to the West!
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. . . there may be
yaks grazing in the valley with the purple
primroses and rhododendrons laughing,
wet with rain, gashes of colour against
persistent monochrome.
I love how your verse breaks where grounded in the present (of memory). I love the laughter breaking the mood as the color breaks the monotone. Thank God for it. And may it recur as often–more often–as the grief and pain. I have discovered that although the grief gets more intense, the joyful memories grow too. I wish I could tell if you liked the spot–but you must! it bite, chills, lifts, laughs.
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Thank you, Susan. I hope the joy manifests as much as the sorrow…I did like that spot as I did most of the places I’ve been writing about. But there is that awareness that it is all temporary and you can’t leave reality behind forever. But yes, they all teach and humble and heal in their own ways.
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Love that parts of this series are finding home elsewhere. Congrats!
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Thank you!! Adds to the support am getting from several quarters. Appreciate you coming in here and reading this series as it goes on!
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