Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged ANZACs, backpacking, Belgian Battlefields, Belgium, canals, Liege, Poetry, Travel, World War One, WWI on 29/09/2011| Leave a Comment »
22. Belgium (Liege)
Hurting blue autumnal skies, crisp above the waterways surrounding Liege.
So peaceful, as my bicycle bumps along their banks.
But still the distant echoes of bloody world war which stole my grandfather’s dad,
drowned in these same canals.
Handwritten postcards to his six year old son, a family’s poignant sorrow.
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Bagmati River, Bruce Collicott, Chomolungma, cremation, Kathmandu, Mt Everest, Nepal, Poetry, Travel on 21/09/2011| 1 Comment »
21. Nepal
In Kathmandu, a life is lost too soon,
a witness in this ancient land,
leave-taken in a corona of carefully layered fire on the banks of the Bagmati.
The kindness of strangers shepherding his soul and his family
to comfort and peace,
ashes dancing under the watchful gaze of Chomolungma*.
jpm
In memory of Bruce Collicott (1967-2000)
*Mt Everest
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged aid work, backpacking, Bangladesh, Chittagong, Poetry, Travel, travel poetry, Travel writing, women's business, women's talk on 14/09/2011| 1 Comment »
20. Bangladesh
It’s 50°C and temperatures are rising.
Hidden beneath the colourful, tattered veils of conservative Chittagong,
the modest matrons as young as eighteen shelter chastely from prying male eyes.
Squatting on swept dirt floors,
they chatter with bawdy, eye-popping, side-splitting aplomb about their husbands’ inadequacy ‘indoors’.
Butter wouldn’t melt!
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma, Burmese people, human rights, Myanmar, Poetry, The Lady, Travel, Travel writing on 07/09/2011| Leave a Comment »
19. Myanmar (Burma)
What does The Lady say? What will The Lady think?
A silhouette of an idea, a flickered impression of a movement,
a resolute shadow of a nation.
Always there.
Never seen, but heard within everyone’s listening heart,
in their deepest way of knowing.
The grace and patience of a people.
jpm
50 words for 50 countries 