Little Glimpses from Sarah

Hi everyone,
This is my first entry in our travel blog. I guess after almost 3 months, I should get to typing :). Matt's been great about spinning out the stories of these days and I'm glad he's so good with electronic communication.

I have only a few things I want to post; 4 poems from various parts of our traveled path. They are all still malleable, still in process... as are most things, hey? Here goes:

The Second of July (7/2/08)
Leaving Vang Vieng
Women holding wet umbrellas
Aloft as they zoom on mopeds in the
Morning rain;
Purples, blues, black checkers.

And I see them, and green,
And tin roofs through
Big streaming bus windows
Moving through Monsoon Laos

Summer Thailand (7/26/08)
Sticky
Sticky skin from sunscreen and sweat
Sticky fingers from cups of sweet cold tea
Sticky rice in woven straw baskets
Sticky bare legs and back of the neck
Hot, sticky, sun-soaked still air

Unmoving, anticipating a breeze, holding its breath
We hold our breath. And sweat. Sticky.

Kathmandu (8/8/08)
I look out my fourth-floor hotel window
And see men at prayer in the florescent-lit
Room across the close alley,
one level down

Children carry long drooping flowers and
flop them while they bounce through whizzing traffic
Women's dress and fruit stands splash bright color
onto the living road

Tiny street entrances lead to Tibetan restaurants
to broad courtyards with stuppas casting eyes far above to an open sky

Whole worlds open up
Through narrow doorways

Crossing Uttar Pradesh (8/20/08)
Street stand samosas served in newsprint
Stares, yelling men
Fragrant incense, heat, rests on piles of carted cut corn
Wet land and strewn trash reflected
on night brick roads

Banana peels dropped from bus windows
Hindi music floating
Women's garb floating
Colors and green and distance and stops and distance
So slow that every mile counts
Slow so that distance stretches

Across wide India.