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Nepalese Notebook: September 21st, 2014

September 21st, 2014
Bhimtang 3800m. by Larkya La Pass 5160m.
You close the metal door of your stone hut in blank wet darkness; a few hours later you wake in darkness again, but the door opens on a vast expanse of stars and the horned moon descending to the peaks of the mountains.  Space and the all-encompassing universe feel not so far away; the difference is realization.  The weather had calmed, no wind was blowing, and the silence of morning and breakfast began ringing in the dinner hall.  The keeper was there, no worse for the wear, and all were speaking of the fine day with eagerness and angst.


We left at dawn, and by the time we reached the moraine of Larkya Glacier, where there rested a beautiful jade-like pool of absolutely still water, the sun was shining brilliantly on the high summits.  The snow that had fallen the night before brought the good fortune this morning of showing us the tracks of a snow leopard which had followed our trail until just after the pass, leaving its …
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A Poet's Journal: October 7th, 2013


October 7th, 2013
To peruse the pages of forgotten books is a pastime in which I shall always partake; and though it turns out that very few sentences are actually read, the mere fixture of the words, or the subject, create an affinity in the mind apt to deeper contemplation.  Hardly can such a book be opened before we feel exist a mystic relationship with what is old, and even more so to the obscure, and far from leading us into a clear path of understanding, that same awkward and unsettling sentiment transfixes us and our thoughts drift back and forth upon the page until it is no longer the story to which we are attached, but the power of our imagination.  It is only when we feel we need to know something that words become our greatest let down; they are but a means to the mysterious--for even among the driest of archaeological accounts there remains something so unilluminating, that were the greatest poet to take up their theme, he could not inspire a finer feeling than the description of some ancient object but newly unearthed.

Douglas Thornton

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A Poet's Journal: September 23rd, 2013

September 23th, 2013

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The Wintering-Ground

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La Flûte

 André Chénier

Toujours ce souvenir m'attendrit et me touche,
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