Mae Sa

Still here

but kind of parochial now.

The older I get

-the more I do this thing-

the more I love Australia

and the more I get away

and the more I love…

 

And so forth.

 

So up the mountain we go,

up the Mae Sa Valley with

Redgum playing.

Cuts to ‘Flame Trees’ 

as we hit the lookout.

My little Australian chick on the back

of our little scooter. 

“Hold on tight now, Tinka,

no fallin’ off the back!” 

 

“I’m just savourin’ familiar sights”

rings out of the phone

as we park; somehow rings completely 

true as, for the first time, we meet the heavy

air 

that descends

with the sun 

over Samoeng Forest. 

 

Yer, that’ll do: heavy air,

over thick green

climbing over itself

to reach up 

and pull 

the heavy down. 

Ok, that’ll do.

 

I like to smile at the other whiteys up here

as we pass each

other on 

our little vehicles. 

They give me nothing. 

So I smile my hello

with even more intent. 

They hate to be outed as just 

another tourist.

Calm down, whitey. 

We all know. We see that you’re a tourist,

that I’m a tourist, 

that we’re in Thailand with the Thais;

let’s all just smile at one another,

for there’s nothin’ to do but enjoy the ride

up all the Samoeng Forests 

of our lives. 

 

But I do 

love to play

on bein’ an Aussie. 

I keep the handlebar and the tan and the tats

to remind ‘em all. 

I love it more and more

the older I get. 

I allow myself that bullshit.

 

And I let me love the view

and I ready up ‘Khe Sanh’ 

as we pack the scooter up

then descend

within a green now known

by touches of orange 

and splatters of calm.

Eternally

You didn’t look good.

The years had plummeted into you.

The fat, the skin-fails, the mood.

 

Yet the memory of you, by consequence,

seemed stronger. 

 

Ah, our youth, now slipping away.

Almost 40 now.

Remember, Simone, the 16^th year of our lives? 

The 17^th?

The 15^th and 14^th?

I was 15 when you told your sis I’d be 

the perfect choice

if you didn’t have a bf already.  

Ah, the years.

 

Ah, the youth.

Are we still a little young?

40 seemed decrepit at the age of 15.

Now it seems there’s still a little hope. 

 

Hm, you don’t look good, Simone. 

Not like you did back then

on Kenton Street.

Your waist not delicate.

Your clothes not light.

Your movements not so dreamy.

 

But you’re beautiful still

in this different world, this different time,

this different song.

You still keep a beat

if only by the memories.

And then those background harmonies, too.

A song still plays.

We’re still a little young

 

eternally. 

The spirit-haze

Dolphins at Tin Can Bay

-like stars that swim through the sky at night. 

The moon at rest

and wondering on what

the all

is all about.

I can sit

and wonder on you, on love,

on sex,

nature, God, all day,

all life.

I’m getting it now:

you,

love,

sex,

nature,

God

is the wondering itself.

 

Dolphins at Tin Can Bay:

alien flesh; smooth; firm clouds. 

 

The wondering,

and wandering,

like fluff-clouds.

The dolphins, the clouds, the spirit-haze.

There’s no awakeness. 

 

I’ll do my best to remember.

I’ll do my best. 

I'm not yet free

I can stroll by a palace.  

I can play the drugs, the drink, 

the search for fortune

and search for power

all for fools. I can walk away. 

 

Still, I’m not yet free. Oh no, no, no.

The pretty girls know why.

 

I trace their dance to the last degree

and together we know I’m not yet free.  

Mark

Oldmate near Meeniyan, 

helping with the awning:

oldmate Mark,

with the rooftop tent

and plans to complete the lap.

 

That was me

some years ago. 

 

Mark, with the dry bag in the racks,

across the months before we met,

have you felt

like I felt back then?

Did you witness God at Nandroya Falls?

Did you marvel at Cable Beach?

Were you lonely at Derby? 

Have you longed for that girl? Ah, that girl. 

Perhaps you thought you’d bring her along 

some day. 

 

Mark,

lifting the bar at the front as I fix the sides,

thanks Mark. 

 

Mark, with time to spare to help a bloke,

did you think, 

as you scanned a border town, 

on love and

on absurdity? 

Did you read One Hundred Years of Solitude

whilst others went to work? 

 

Mark,

I’ll see you again in several years

in another version of here:

me still you and you still me

to the tune of the oldmate’s anthem,

where it all means nothing, Mark.

And yet it does mean something, too, 

doesn’t it? 

 

 

Hilarious

It’s intimidating at first.

 

Adolescence fights it by denial. 

 

We embrace it in time

and call it the stuff of spirit.

 

But then

we start to laugh.

And then we can’t stop laughing

(I’m not yet there).

We come to see

it’s just a prank.

The entire thing,

the entire performance of things,

is nothing short of hilarious. 

Compassion

Compassion

doesn't act as advertised.

It's not a moral code.

It's not political.

It's not a fabric.

 

Compassion is, say,

ceasing to judge the ones

who hardly read

and standing in awe of those

who build the house you can't.

But even more, it's stopping to learn

from those who practise neither

when stopping for those

who practise both.

 

It's loving another because they exist,

not "timing" or

"compa...tabi...lity".

 

It's accepting you're a yobbo,

have always been a yobbo,

will always be a yobbo;

 

that there isn't a soul

on earth

who's not a yobbo.

 

It's indifference to the win.

It's interest in the loss.

 

Compassion ain't religious statues,

calls for action

or righteous drives.

 

It's the final, drawn-out, heavy

admission:

 

you're just like everyone else.

 

No better,

no worse.

You have your gifts, your faults,

and you know as much

as anyone knows,

 

which is

of course

nothing, really.

Which is

about

as much as we ever need to know.

Here's to that

I’ve made my peace 

with most of the pretty things. 

I accept them now with shades of boredom,

though rarely jadedness. 

The jadedness flourished

only in those chasing days. 

 

But there’s a pretty thing 

still startling me:

the pretty girl. 

 

The pretty girl gets prettier.

The yearning grows,

the ache remains.

 

Time burrows through and finds 

the rocks

and dirt

and steel

and pipes

at the base of most of the

pretty things. 

 

But the pretty girl

gets prettier. 

 

It’s the start and end of revolutions. 

It’s how and why and where I

never reach enlightenment.

 

And here’s to that.

 

Here’s to the awe that lasts. 

Of those things

Of those things I’ve tried to find,

may I let them go entirely. 

 

I searched for fame and influence.

How goofy. 

May I only search for the little licks 

the whitewash gives

when it starts its descent from sand. 

 

The politics – it revved in me.

May that keep to being idle. 

May my gaze be on the feathered wings,

for they only lift the present up.

They must leave the lump behind.  

 

I’ve wanted to be wanted 

by all the girls in the room.

I’ve had my grand designs. May they keep to toppling down

so I see the show completely. 

 

I’ve waited for fate in the form of career.

May I only wait 

for the quiet breeze

at the end of a climb

at the edge of a town

that puts dust on my boots

and peace in my pockets.