I take out my notebook. The pages are full: temples and egg burgers, tea hills and brick-walled cafes, a girl in green velvet, sandalwood incense, a monk’s woodblock at 4:16 AM. I have written all of it. I have carried it with me, across this country, across this night. Now I close the notebook. I slip it into my bag. I lean back in my seat. Continue reading Night Flight From Guangzhou
It’s just me and the curve of the valley.And there is meaning on Earth, I am happy… – Noah Kahan … Continue reading The View Between Villages
I am a traveller here. Which is to say: I am temporarily unburdened. Back home, I am a port supervisor. I work with tide tables, cargo manifests, and radios crackling with instructions. I have spreadsheets, rosters, and responsibilities. Here, in Anxi, I am simply a man in the hills drinking tea. And that is a kind of disguise.
Continue reading The Third Infusion
I stand before the hull and imagine Marco Polo standing here in Quanzhou, seven centuries ago, watching these same ships being loaded with porcelain and silk, ready to sail to Java, to Sumatra, to the Malabar Coast, to Hormuz, to Basra, to the edge of the known world. Continue reading The Thirteen Compartments
I’m getting off to get lost in the air,At the edge of the world where the light is bending… – … Continue reading The Temple by the Sea
The Light is the first most glorious being,limited by no number…– Mani, as recorded in the Fihrist (the Manichaean scripture) … Continue reading The Buddha of Light
“Our lives are made in these small hours, these little wonders…”– Rob Thomas 4:16 AM in the Old Town. Outside, … Continue reading In My Neighbourhood
Waiting for the colour of spring.Let me breathe… – Talk Talk, April 5th. A hot, pale blue sky arches over … Continue reading The Colour of Spring
Later, I see a plaque. Carved stone, old, official. Two characters: “Civilisation endures.” I do not know what to do with these two things: the girl, the plaque. But they belong together. They must. Continue reading The Girl in the Doorway
The tide is coming in. It does not rush. It never rushes. But it is relentless; a slow, patient rising … Continue reading High Tide on Luoyang Qiao
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