Obstacles don't block the path; they are the path. ~ Zen proverb

And so begins my journey on a fresh page. I'm walking home. I'm okay with walking alone but it's also nice to have company. Will you walk with me?

The following poem was written in 1975 when I was 17 years old and

curious about family history, in particular my family’s journey to escape a civil war and dictatorship in Burma.

The poem is seen through a British colonial lens in its word choices, not by conscious choice at the time but through an intuitive connection to my Anglo-Burmese father’s experiences as an insider/outsider in a colonial society. 

Arrival

Burmese women sit asian style

Squat, knees to chins

Sarongs crumpled around fair legs.

They exchange words on markets

And husbands and children.

They may walk to town in the hot noon sun. 

The jungle steams behind their backs

Hissing and spotted

Alive with poison

And among the banyans venomous eyes

And crying elephants laboring in the dust. 

Down by the Irrawaddy fishing boats come

At the train station, a boy from Dehra Dun -

And in his eyes, English boarding schools

And beggars and snow capped Himalayas. 

Village women pass with jasmine

Woven through black hair.

The scent of frangipani lingers after them.

Soon the monsoons will come to wash

 the dust from the dry earth.

At dusk, the women walk towards home

Down Mandalay Road.

The jungle hisses in the night

The train from Dehra Dun arrives with the boy

But his hair is gray now and his eyes

Have seen more than English boarding schools

And beggars

And snow capped Himalayas.