Stupas Over Temples, 68 verses – Annapurna Sunrise
Arriving in Pokhara, Nepal on Buddha Air, or was it Yeti Air, landing at the tiny airport on dodgy planes piloted by the most skilled aviators, it was all a dream come true but I was there on a mission, to check into Ayurveda Health Home for an extended stay.
Plans had changed when an India visa went awry in Thailand which led to a side quest to Malaysia, then Kathmandu for a quick switcheroo. Found the just right kind of hotel that I like: independent, quirky, live music and restaurant on site, all local staff and “quirky “trying our best” vibes, and, important to this dispatch, right by the lake. You can rent a boat and paddle yourself *or* hire a boatman to take you first to a shrine on an island in the lake, and then to the far shore where most folks then walk up to the world peace stupa.
I am not rated for such a walk or the rowing so hired a boatman, sat on the bow seat and filled a notebook up in a white heat stream of consciousness – short form, occasionally rhyming meditations and annotations about the mishmash of Hinduism, Buddhism, Maoism and Himalayan myths – as well as cups of tea, fantastic Topi hats, possibly legit mountaineering gear, and meeting friendly folks every time we stopped at the boat for a moment.
Results follow, 68 riffs, unedited, transcribed directly from my notebooks, embarrassments and all, as to not mess with my raw emotions and labeled a “choruses” in nod to Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City and San Francisco sudden poems & interspersed with a few photos snapped along the way
Also available as a Postcard from Gravelly Beach audio podcast or a companion “Nepal Stupa Choruses” video of the same augmented with these photos that you see below so, enjoy in any way which suits you best (or all of ways would probably be the wisest)
Stupas Over Temples
1
The pigeons eat the flowers
Donated to the Gods
Who despite their omnipotent powers
Request your spare change patronage
2
Tree trunks striped red and white
To accessorize the bark
Stumps carefully manicured
To delineate the park
3
The temple sits tiny
On a smaller island
Generations of monk picnics
Right there i imagine
4
Pollinate the land
With gravel, brick and mortar
Golden jewels removed
To keep throngs in order
5
Buy pellets to feed the fish
Clearly reincarnated from royal kin
And Buddha who slept there
Next to the Gentlemen’s room
6
Hindus dotted foreheads
Don’t mind another deity
Add to a pantheon of excess
Room for another at the party
7
But i’ve a question for you Gautama
As you neighbours choose to call ya
Do you really need these golden replicas
Numbered in the millions?
8
Buy one for the dash of your motorbike
Tattoos however are not appropriate
Unless ordered with compassion
And expressed demand and tribute
9
Temple something like a treehouse
The good man and i constructed in our youth
With a stack of forgotten lumber
Cut and stacked and rough hewn
10
Assembled with silver spikes
Forged with iron ore
Appropriate for railways
Too heavy for anything more
11
Thatched roof is replaced now
By hammered corrugated tin
To make the rain a mighty symphony
When monsoon comes again
12
The rain keeps in the bells in time
In a random time signature
Attached to roofs and railings
Brass glinting with the overture
13
Ducats for your blessings
Or else they don’t get heard
Gongs to amplify your wishes
Coins to mend your wrongs
14
Gautama grew up in this very neighbourhood
“Check your privilege” he’d be told
Born to a royal line
Mistaking protection for being bold
15
Excess and exuberance
Feasting every night
Got it out of your system
Not sure if that’s alright
16
So you left your wife alone
I think about your baby boy
Hearing stories of his deadbeat Dad
Our seeking, simple peace and joy
16
Begging for enlightenment
And a pen to write it down
Seven truths and a middle path
Graceful smile, never a frown
17
Handed down through centuries
Ringed with gold and clay
In the shadow of a pagoda
Another one up the way
18
Seagulls stand watch
As the lakeside traffic guards
Tiny boats ignore their warnings
Landing on the yard
19
Might not be enough i fear
As rumours emerge from sky
Over shortwave transmission static
All i hear are lies
20
These transmissions suggest a plot
Chaos in other lands
This peace you speak about
Is it readily at hand?
21
Do they meditate before the fly
The plane over mountain passes?
Or just check off the list
Clean dirty bifocal glasses
22
Roads fully wandered
Pilgrimages to their western homes
Eighty eight sacred sites
Or a walk to touch old bones
23
Venerated by authority figures
Who say we’re all the same
Capable of great compassion
Empty condolences are benign
24
Gentleness when it suits the times
Actions sequestered under words
Rituals, routines and rote memorization
Gather the flock into passive herds
25
Untempered by the fires
Which burn from hardwood planks
Chiseled, hewn and quartered
Identity lost in clumsy stacks
26
You wear your robes to designate
Dedication to the clerics
Who’s chosen to keep the keys
To the sepalcure intact
27
In your dusty mausoleum
They gently lift the lid
Drill a hole for observation
By generations of the dead
28
Proud and dedicated experts
Misquoting scripture fibs
Left to interpretation
Offering explanation for what you did
29
They are mocked for being born
Apparently an inopportune time
Reviled for dependencies
Very intelligence undermined
30
Greedy forebears mistaking
Letters for actual meaning
Scratching lines to define their times
Exaggerations on page gleaming
31
It’s easy to be you i suppose
Born with all all the gifts
Times of abundance and plenty
Enough so you can drift
32
Wander desert for forty minutes
Watch ants under banyan trees
Inspire other seekers
But ignore their basic needs
33
Contributions pay for paint
And brooms to sweep around
The ruffage from the recluse
Leaves untidy on the ground
34
You should have asked a forester
Why the leaves don’t fall anymore
The reasons arrive in chaos
Organic detritus feel the soil
35
Now we float towards
Lofty goals to celebrate
World peace in a land
Promised to be great
36
Swept away by murder
Just like all the rest
Reasons and justifications
Undermine the best
37
Rough wove robes on one side
Spangled uniforms the other
Both beholden someone
Who doesn’t know their name
38
Be ready for inspection
Whether tomorrow or another life
Sins tip scales to one side
Subjectivity to the left
39
Omission defined as fuzzy
Commissions paid in full
With interest for all involved
Who tabulate the score
40
They mock themselves
For their own award
Chastise their own guilt
By associations with thuggery
Voted in last night
41
The writ will be fastened
To the iron gate out front
Read by the one in the proper hat
Privy to the blues
Abusing your only right
42
Growing up your forgotten son
Never sent a gift
Say “no” to all requests
For favours, tickets and forgiveness
Haunted with jaundiced fright
43
We float away now
Let the current take us there
Alas a lake lacks a tidal force
Of gravity’s easy pull
44
The solution seems obvious
Construct another dam
To harness all the carnage
And catch the beavers unplanned
45
Diligent workers unrequited
Unprepared for the transmissions
Of coded words, plans and ruses
Written in jest spontaneously
46
So the lodge is interrupted
By unexpected turmoil
Flee to hide among the trees
Until it all blows over
47
The rooster crows
Though times well past noon
Boats land on sand nearby
A tea shop on the trail
Before walking clockwise round
48
A pagoda is the goal
So you kick the roundest ball
Paddle in two directions
To see which one falls
49
Two teas before the stupa
Looming over the lake
Shortchanged by the storekeeper
Who didn’t close the gate
50
The hinge is rusty now
And conflict might breakout
Over a dirty bill
Made in a hidden tenement
51
Each one authenticated by hand
Printing pressed with hubris ink
To create current currency
To exchange for surveyed land
52
Cold store with warm whiskey
Drink up before you go
The clinicians won’t allow inebriation
Since you’ve signed the pact
53
An edict to obey the rules
Made for someone else
When all you seek is shelter
Protection from the wind
54
Light a beedie and sit still
With a yak milk tea
On a short dry fit rock wall
Absence of masonry
55
Chairs sit empty
Under an iron roof
Paint peels but signal is strong
To notify of sacred gifts
56
Alerts of imminent tremors
Which shake brick houses down
Two cups of sugar ruin a ton
Of Roman cemented lime
57
Aqueducts replaced by distilleries
Mistresses for wife
Secrets written in large block print
Hidden in plain sight
58
My boots are made of leather
Though i swerve around the cows
Riprap assembled by ancients
Who decided on a stroll
59
My walking stick is not made for distance
Just enough to clear the rocks
To a higher vantage point
To observe encroaching fogs
60
Mountains obscured by smoke
Or maybe too clear
Annapurna wants to hide her flank
From invading prying eyes
61
A blue Buddha stands alert
In a meditative trance
Hardened by decades
Since the last repaint
62
A bandage over your third eye
From where the spear tip pierced
Injecting new found wisdom
Cultured pearls of intelligence
63
His hands tough and wrinkled
Accustomed to a paddle
To match his purple hat
Contrasts the grey beneath
64
Tickets to return you
To the lakeside garden
Where dancers might amuse you
Before the band begins to play
65
Songs olden you suspect
Though proof remains elusive
Ankles strong in sandals
Ready for a trip
66
Heft your only rucksack
Holding essential things
Until the weight reaches critical
Arches your slender back
The stupa is forty five minutes uphill
Downhill, an hour and a half
67
Seems Siddhartha borrowed
Soggy Neptune’s trident
Only for a while
Prepared to protect the masses
From rogue waves
And endless toil
68
Massif high and foreboding
As though chiseled by Neanderthals
From black obsidian rocks
Into a jagged rustic tool
Sufficient to skin an Ox
Keep Trekking
More poems from the trip written within the hospital (which of course has a complete dossier) and later in Annapurna circuit village of Ghandruk collected as “Annapurna Sunrise“(in a style different than my usual freeform stream of consciousness, they feel more earnest and certainly more rhyme-y) but that’s how it came out // I am the vessel and that is what the source sent after all, after all :)
Other poems written while in the hospital are scattered throughout the archive under separate covers – exploring themes of love, identity, home, transition, boundaries, and borders – and two are also available as songs with music and performance by Mikael Lewis – “Wildflower (for foster)” and “Coldwater flat”
Also, there’s a PDF to make your own Annapurna Sunrise chapbook so you can tuck this in your backpack pocket the next time you’re hiking in the Uintas, the Alps (European or Japanese), or the Himalayas (you know I’m partial to the western Himalayas, hooray Annapurna!)
