POETRY |
It's eerie to be in a place so totally foreign.
Photo by Diane Frank
Photo by Diane Frank
Walkways:
On her trek. Photo by the Author
He likes to take us hiking at night. We walk down a path with a stream in the middle, turn left behind a tea house, and follow a narrow trail into the dark. We slide down a dirt hill and then hear the river very close.
Now we are climbing over boulders, again in the dark. It’s eerie to be in a place so totally foreign. The first mountain pools we find are cold, so we hike longer. He goes ahead and then calls in that high-pitched animal sound the Sherpas taught him. He flashes his headlamp to show us where. The men take their trousers off, and the women change into bathing suits under their skirts. Now we are all chest high in a foot and a half of hot water and mud—an unbelievable luxury after 18 days in the mountains. We take our time. We’re late for dinner and wash each other’s hair. We are a pack of water buffalos—lazy, peaceful animals. Once you let them into the water, it’s very hard to get them out. Stretching out in the mountain pools, we can hear the roar of the river and the rocks grinding in the distance. We see the galaxy spread across the sky, billions of stars, and the outline of the valley around us. At the end of a long day of walking, it is delicious just to lie there and look at the stars, which are so bright in this part of the world. The air is so clear. The night is so dark and mysterious. In my dreams, I climb inside a nautilus shell, surrounded by water, back to an earlier part of time. I remember long love nights in the mountains. In the morning, my bed is littered with trilobite fossils. 1 Walkways:
Photo by the Author
Today we climb up a waterfall. My muscles are ecstatic as they lift me stone by stone.
My Buddhist friend is watching me from the other side of the gorge. I see his red shirt and his telephoto lens. I feel his eyes with my muscles, and my entire body responds. Tibetan refugees pass by with their ancient eyes and colorful clothes. We listen to their songs. Horses are running down the path carrying apples in packs draped over mandala rugs. The bells on their necks sound like mountains. The caravan of yaks on a higher path—a vision from a Tibetan dream. My Buddhist friend is watching me, even in my sleep. I see him jump from rock to rock like a mountain goat. I find him where bamboo grows from the side of a cliff, in a secret place of ferns, by rocks with small flecks of silver. Author's Note: These poems are excerpted from Letters from a Sacred Mountain Place: A Journey through the Nepal Himalayas, by Diane Frank (Nirala Publishing, 2018, New Delhi, India)
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