10.13 - back from Dunhuang on the sponsored Bing trip

My camera ran out of battery the first day, but I sketched the quiet motionlessness of things in this Gobi Desert town on the far end of the country, and I wrote my poems like ravens' scratches as the tour bus squeaked and jittered over 农村 roads.

The first stop was the Caves of Ten Thousand Buddhas (Mogao Grottoes), where centuries ago Western explorers deceived the guardian monk and stole sacred scriptures and even panels off of the cave walls. Many of the caves are closed off with regularity to preserve from deterioration by circulated carbon dioxide, but we got the special treatment from head security to have special caves unlocked. None of us had asked for this sort of pedestal.

1.
I can only imagine
the scaffolding
800 years ago:
paintbrushes, smell
of sunlight, dust and
prayer. On the ground
level, the eyes
of gods are scrached or chiseled
off. When we ask why,
the tour guide says heretics
and looks away. Another wall:

W. PAUCK
19 VII 37

like a kid's tree carving;
I scratch at my own eyes,
look for the light.

2.
The lounging Buddha
entering Nirvana, his foot
the size of myself,
red pigment faded
into the desert sand...
how long now
before the next lesson?

5.
I have studied this lotus sutra
and seen its manifestations
but never imagined it
with such need.

Leaving on the bus and thinking of the love and reverence put into those paintings, I decided to continue for my black belt when I return and wrote, "One of my greater moments of comfort and belonging is the fulfilling of potential and sharing in it."

From there, I slept until we went to the Jade Pass, the remains at the end of the Great Wall. It's much shorter here because if you can't get your camel over the small wall, you'll never make it across the desert anyway. I sat atop it and looked out at the dust of cracked earth crawling to the horizon, the bowl of clouds in the sky, the whole history of my people in the classical imagination.

This is the origin of wind. I heard it like coils of silk, straightening and unfurling, straightening and unfurling.

Then back to the bus: another haze of sleep and song.

the earth...
the sky...
hakuna matata

The next day, we stood over the ruins of the Yangguan Pass, where suddenly we were dots in a scape of dunes, where the red shades of earth along its curves foretold every sunset we'll ever know. here, the wind sounded like prayer beadss rolling. In some spots, it was the sound of a bird's wind; in others, the sound of secrets from another place.

And we rode camels and saw a muggy moon above the sand dunes before the sun went down, so textured it was like seeing Earth from another star.

This place was chosen for the Bing trip because of the moment in China Road when Rob Gifford is sitting on the rooftop of the fancy-ass hotel watching the sun set over the dunes with light instrumental music in the background. We stayed at that hotel, and watched the sun's first burst and last colors.

We could be silhouettes forever in a weightless world. See the smooth curves of our lines.