Having left the Silk Road city walls of Herat (Afghanistan) in our dust we trailed west toward the frontier with Iran coming to the Afghan border post at Islam Qala. There we cleared exit formalities with authorities who regarded with side-eye our saucy-red VW sedan, its makeshift rooftop carrier accommodating three additional passengers and a […]
Pebble on the Tongue
Pebble on the Tongue*: Quo Vadis?
Pebble on the Tongue*: Quo Vadis?
In a season of bewilderment like our own, a word from African tradition may prove useful: When you are not clear on a destination,You do well to remember whence you came. That is, recall Such recollections can whisper where to plant next steps. *Travelers in desert lands, facing prolonged thirst, have learned that a small […]
Pebble on the Tongue*
Pebble on the Tongue*
Two lines from a classical Chinese poet whose experience of ‘traipse’ touches on travels occasioned by work, fancy, family or even, duress – two lines that may anticipate some great, ultimate move, for which present ‘traipses’ are but rehearsal. The sorrow at leaving my city fades before the old joy of being in new mountains. […]
Pebble on the Tongue*
Pebble on the Tongue*
It may well be in the course of a traipse, even a pious pilgrimage, that a wild flower will trump St. Peter’s Basilica itself. When I Returned From Rome A bird took flight.A flower in a field whistled at me as I passed.I drank from a stream of clear water.And at night, the sky untied […]
Pebble on the Tongue: Idle Chatter Over An Iris
Pebble on the Tongue: Idle Chatter Over An Iris
Pausing in Osaka along ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ with his travel-worn satchel,having taken in the cherry blossom temples, the wild coasts and stately mountains, Basho, the forebear of Haiku writes of his meanders, To talk casuallyAbout an iris flowerIs one of the pleasuresOf the wandering journey. Yes, one of many small – […]
Pebble on the Tongue: Always a Backstory
Pebble on the Tongue: Always a Backstory
If traipsing teaches nothing more, it beckons the traveler to wait for a backstory (apologies, Derrida!) in every encounter or first impression. Consider a haiku by the Japanese master, ‘Issa’, d. 1828 after a life of misfortunes. So hospitably waving at the entrance gate the willow tree. – trans. H. Henderson It paints a brush-and-ink […]
Pebble on the Tongue*: A Lyric Pause to Recollect
Pebble on the Tongue*: A Lyric Pause to Recollect
Now and again it is cleansing for a writer to reckon frankly with his or her craft. A few lines from Edna St. Vincent Millay (1939) will serve my purpose well: Song II For you there is no song, Only the shaking of the voice that meant to sing, The sound of the strong voice breaking. Strange in […]
Pebble on the Tongue: Fork in a Brazilian Street
Pebble on the Tongue: Fork in a Brazilian Street
A BBC reporter on the street in Brazil as national elections approached, asked a clear-eyed passerby what he made of the choice before him (the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, or Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva). He replied: “Lula is certainly not the gateway to Paradise, but he is the way out of Hell.” The traveler does […]
Pebble On The Tongue*: The House of Tears
Pebble On The Tongue*: The House of Tears
Every language has some register of expression at which it excels. These powers tell a great deal about the social history of each community: its origins, the tenor of its story, even its physical context and values. Languages of the global South often have unusual capacities for commiseration; this from deep experience in struggles for […]
Pebble on the Tongue: Can Filigree Strings Yet Carry Us Aloft?
Pebble on the Tongue: Can Filigree Strings Yet Carry Us Aloft?
While meandering home from the Canadian Maritimes some time ago, we stopped at the suggestion of family by the College of New Jersey in Trenton to view an art exhibit about the beauty and travail of Afghanistan. There we stumbled on the video of an extraordinary scene composed by Lida Abdul, who, exile that she […]
Pebble on the Tongue: “If You’re Lucky …”
Pebble on the Tongue: “If You’re Lucky …”
To say that travels will move you, is a tautology, self-evident on the face. But Kate Daniels, lyricist of the gritty, personal truths of the American South has penned a line that captures the traveler’s rarest take-away, the most powerful gift of a ‘traipse’: If you’re lucky ….It will bring you to your knees. Kate […]
Pebble on the Tongue: ‘Luckiest Woman Alive!’
Pebble on the Tongue: ‘Luckiest Woman Alive!’
Some years ago, I was dinner guest in the home of an Ethiopian woman in Winnipeg, Canada. We sat on haunches in her kitchen as she made coffee in the ceremonial way, roasting beans over open coals. The strong aroma suffused her life story. Years before, she had married for love a Muslim man back […]
Pebble on the Tongue: From the Basement of Suffering
Pebble on the Tongue: From the Basement of Suffering
Given the loss and suffering that marks these days, here is the sense of a moment recounted by Sadako Kurihara, poet of Hiroshima: In Hiroshima, in a basement, mid stench and death, a young woman goes into labor. A woman, herself moaning with pain, steps forward. “I can help with the baby. I am a […]
Pebble on the Tongue: Gift of the Gulag
Pebble on the Tongue: Gift of the Gulag
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is not known to have written much about his epic, and often painful, travels – to Kazakhstan and his years in the gulag, to Germany when exiled and made stateless by the Soviet authorities, later around the world as a celebrated Nobel laureate, and eventually back to Mother Russia. But he did write […]
Du Fu: Pebble On the Tongue
Du Fu: Pebble On the Tongue
A handful of lyrical lines can whisper to the traveler – how vast is the sea of creative beauty – how deep the wistfulness of soul – how strong the yearning in our sojourn – how paltry our grasp of the great yonder – how precious to find company midst ‘silent peaks’ _____________________________ Written On […]