Tag: thailand

Agaonidae (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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Part I

It began with the fig. It will end with the fig as well. She was my mother, the womb from which I was born and she is my home. She gave life to the forest, feeding gibbons and hornbills, civets and barking deer. But only I am of her.

Before my time, she attracted a body swollen with eggs that soon would grow into me, my sisters and brothers, and him. This swollen wasp body forced her way home, losing antennae and wings in her struggle to enter the fig. They danced together, a dance which would end in death; which is to say, a dance ending in new life. The wasp would not make it out alive. She implanted her eggs into the flesh of my mother, knowing all along it was only a trap.

Part II

I had barely opened my eyes and he was there. It was my lifes first movement to reach for him, tiny legs reaching for his tiny gentle body. Though the fig was our womb, it was he who gave birth to me. He had eaten through the walls of the egg holding me in. For now, I could stretch my wings, and now I knew of a world outside of myself. My wings wrapped around him, enclosing us both, creating a tiny screen to shield from the hundreds of other wasp bodies performing the same frenzied ritual. The flowers of the fig caressed us and showered us with pollen, the holy water of creation. There was no such thing as close enough.

and i left him there

Part III

And just like that everything came undone. My whole world exploded in spirals of starry pollen, glistening with the reflection of a sun I had never seen. The powdery gold coated my abdomen and legs, turned my black hair blonde. Rattan palms turned their fanned gazes upward. Macaques tilted curious heads in my direction. The butterflies all were still. The whole forest held its breath as it watched life’s fairy-dust rain down from my mother fig.

Under these vigilant eyes, my sisters and I fly skyward, the new dilettantes of the forest, in a synchronized ballroom-dance search for purpose. Fig-pollen for lipstick and rouge, we shine. Our lacy wings make us the angels of new life. Drip-tip leaves offer their hands in marriage, strangler figs try to tie us down. But we know we are meant for more than that. We are swollen with the children of the forest.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingleslenobel/ for the amazing picture!

Apsara (Thailand. Summer 2010.)

Jaclyn5 Comments

Hidden beneath an alluvial sunset

and longtail-tossed waves,

she gives herself to the Mother Water,

sinking into riverweed and muck.

Bejeweled with leeches and crabs,

her hair is tangled with water

hyacinth roots and as their leaves

become sails, pulled by the wind, so she too goes.

Rice barges swollen with freight

pass overhead;

the riverbed darkens and glows,

darkens and glows.

Her lotus-leaf eyes emanate green dew

as her fingers flit up and back

telling the story of fountains and gusts

through the silted sweet-water.

The rocking hulls of boats above

tap out the rhythm of the Grand Duke’s dance.

Openbill storks sing along as the dusky light

begins to fill with vapor and lightning.

As the percussion quickens,

so does her nymphish undulation.

Her hand runs over a freshwater ray,

lightening its warrior’s load.

The River of Kings is stirring

and the air becomes thick.

The lines between waves

and falling droplets blur.

She spins her epic daily dance,

mesmerizing gods and algae alike.

Her shimmies scatter wriggling bubbles

eroding the cares of  heroes and prawn.

The downpour erupts

into an orchestra,

whistling through frangipanis

and strumming succulent vines.

She careens with water monitors

as her bracelets chime and her silky skirts rise.

She fingers orchids floating

on the co-centric ripples of the Chao Praya.

Mangosteens drop

and dragon fruit roar.

The cacophony of the monsoon

coaxes pregnant trees to bear their fruit.

Banana flowers quake in the wind

and watch as her forehead crests.

The freshet pulls her upward

and her eyes meet with mangoes.

Veils rise into wings.

Air and water merge.

She is the estuary below.

She is the storm above.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/7147684@N03/ for the photo!

The Weight of Bangkok (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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It was a small splash, the first time the Chao Phraya River touched her skin. It collected itself, making a rivulet, its own tiny clone, and slithered from her shoulder, down her back. It was easy enough to brush off at the time; her attention was focused on ochre-colored robes of tan-colored monks and the smell of sewage. The busy-ness of Bangkok is enough to distract even the most worldly of travelers. It would caress her often while she tried to wrap her mind around the city. She often mistook its gentle droplets for her own sweat. Little by little it seeped into her clothes. The algae would get invisibly caked in her hair. Bathing only made it worse, since it was the same snake that came out of the faucet, running in tiny streams down her legs and nesting in her drain, just waiting for the next time she would stand above it. It brought all of Thailand into her room. The sweat from the bathing mother. The piss of the Ko Kret buffalo. The decomposing rice leaves. The acrid saliva of Asian Open-Billed Storks. The ashes of incense from Wat Pai Lom. The river left them on her eyelashes, resting on the shelf of her belly button and curled in the ques of her pubic hair. In less than two weeks time, she was drowning in it, tangled in water hyacinth.

The combination of water hyacinth and wet heat left me with dreams of the Amazon. Before long, each day was laced with ayahuasca. My stomach ached for and wretched with the newness of each experience. My appetite left me completely, and food became just another beautiful band in the rainbow of the life around me. Piranhas nibbled my toes as I walked down streets dusty with the resin of car exhaust, curry-laced smoke, and incense cinders. Vipers strung themselves from telephone poles and carried the secrets of the city from Klongsan to Phra Pinklao. The sky let loose a constant rain of wet sunshine. Even at night, nothing was dry. The moist fervor of the city covered my body, making it a struggle to keep my hips still.

In the end, it was the weight of everything which finally drove me mad. Every blanket was too heavy to sleep under. Just thinking became dangerous because one could get smothered under the weight of a simple idea. Each thought that went into the air collected condensation and dust, becoming more and more tangible and visible, until it finally dropped to the ground in a puddle and actually existed.

Dry Flies (Thailand. Summer 2011.)

Jaclyn5 Comments

Dry Flies

Ten eyes blink
in an unfamiliar brightness.
You both almost remember
seeing this sun before.
Some time before the darkness,
before you slept with roots and grubs,
before your premature burials,
before the prime number
of years spent waiting.

The temperature is right.
It’s your four minutes, the soil urges.
Take it. Take it.

Seventeen years this moment has
grown and molted, hid and sighed,
waited and waited to sing.

It’s not time to store for winter.
It’s time to leave empty selves behind,
clinging to bark and dust.
It’s time to shed golden skins.

Vines pause their swaying,
mangoes hold their breath,
leaf corpses don’t even rustle.
The dog day is silent.

It’s loud at first, furious and brave,
drunk with the newness of light.
It’s not a matter of legs or violins.
Bodies resound as ribs rub together.

The song becomes a whisper
as you near each other,
gentler, like a snake in the leaves.
It’s no longer for coaxing,
no longer for the eyes of the trees.

Branches are split.

Later, much later,
buttressed trees will burst with children,
nymphs will rain from their twiggy fingers,
speckled-dust life and the promise of song
will fall to a summery, shimmery floor.

But now, it’s not time to store for winter.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/ for the photo of “Cicadas” etching by Marilyn McPheron.

Tamarind Trees (Thailand. Spring 2009.)

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The tamarind trees lie in pieces outside my windows, broken by a sense of caution. Their fruit snake away from the branches ashamed and the leaves shrivel brown in the sun’s stare. The blue-crested lizards search for their limbs, but they are now bodies alone. From the checkered balcony even the ants shake their heads, knowing the sun has gone mad. The tendrils of passion vine convulse in the wind, praying for a mango sky. Yellowsweet and orangewet. Only then can the leaves stretch their fingers. Only then can the ants lift their loads. Only then can the tamarinds rest their heads.