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| Sunset in the land of Pagodas |
a poem by Semester-at-Sea student Stephen Brown
There’s a kind of simple
ness
A kind of simple
mess
Things are not boggled
down, not mixed and
matched in wires
In towers
In complications
It’s disconcerting
disconnecting
We wave from a boat
to strangers
Us three
We strange grouping
Bangladeshi
American
Keralian
We drift
rock
pitch down the
river with a sawed off ashtray between us
How do we think of
Home?
How do I think of Indiana?
Ohio?
There’s no answer.
Maybe this one doesn’t have one.
But,
I look towards the banks
And think maybe, the trees
got it
Through roots
stems and branches
That’s how we stay connected, reminded
of our intricate
interweavings of an
interlocking, interpersonal world
Interlaced and
entwined
We, we strange three
We queer group of
friends look towards
The banks
People smack clothes against rocks with
wet slaps
Cutting open, dividing
A stingray in half
We three
This trinity of
Holy people
Hindu
Muslim
Catholic
Here, disconnected
from our worries
in cities
Now, disconnected
from blood-borne feuds
We stand connected
Well,
We sit connected
Our feet crossed
Our toes spread
roots drop down deep.
Exposing the core of things
Exposing the beauty of this
Eyes close we drift away
But,
not that far away
We may be separated by continents
May be separated by time zones
But,
Our hearts reach through the ground
We can’t hug around
a globe,
Our arms are too small
But we drop roots
They link us together
We have found such a simple-mess in this simple-ness.
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| Professor Frank von Hippel from the University of Alaska in Anchorage showing off to his biology students (and his three children) |
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| I am nose to nose with Buddha in Angkor Thom |
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| Three life-long learners and a student on a sunset cruise |
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