Off to Central Asia tonight

Finally I am off to Kazakhstan tonight, and then along the golden road to Samarkand.

Charlie Douglas Poem

Charlie Douglas (centre of photo) lived on the West Coast of New Zealand from 1867 to 1916, exploring, surveying and mapping the mountains, bush, rivers, lakes and coastline. He was born in Scotland and for his outstanding work was referred to respectfully as Mr. Explorer Douglas. Charlie has been a great inspiration to me and figures prominently in my book - Ebenezer Teichelmann - Cutting Across Continents by Bob McKerrow tara-india research press - New Delhi. 2005
http://www.indiaresearchpress.com/ and distributed in New Zealand by Craig Potton Publishing.

Enjoy the poem

Charlie Douglas

So what was the inner spring that made you tick ?
In valleys where snow, ice, water and mica mix
Incessant rain and slippery logs
Mosquitoes, sand flies bush and bogs
And ah, paradise lurking in those hot pools
Stripped your rags far way from’ those fools’
As you soaked your matted beard and ropey hair
And a moment of thanksgiving, a silent prayer

Strong, sinewy and stringy as Weka meat
After years of amazing geographical feats
You lay awake, dreaming year after year
Many thought you were a man without a care
But you were putting the world together
While stranded for weeks in nor’westerly weather
Puffing, sucking the old brown brair
In your batwing tent you kindle a fire

No mortgage family possessions houses or barns
You are a free-wheeling man with only socks to darn
A river to cross and a range to measure
Keeping a watchful eye on the wild weather
Weeks of rain and sodden clothes
Notebooks full of maps, observations and prose
Your thrills came from discovery and not wiley tarts,
Betsy Jane at your side, obedient and fast

The tuis, bellbirds and robins kept you in song
Your footprints were the first in many places,
Mountain top, gorges river and glaciers
The whiskey jar at the Forks Okarito and Scotts,
Discussing the world with fellow Scots
The jar was your best mate on the binge
You were one of those living over the fringe

Banking almost got you, wife kids and all
But marriage to you was like a pall
Your dreams wafted like smoke from your pipe
Slabs of rata your company during the night
The cursed danps got into every joint
Did you ever ask ‘whats the bloody point ?'

Was it you Charlie or the others who were the fools ?
Your maps, sketches and diaries over which generations drool
No Charlie it was a good deal you got
Harper, and others, you never tolerated that lot
Alpine Club braggards you named them true
Canterbury amateurs who stole feats from you
It was Roberts McFarlane ,Bannister and Teichy
They were soul mates of a similar physie
Staunch and modest friends who knew your strengths
Overlooked your weaknesses and came to your defence

The final years in Hokitika with Mrs Ward
Wife of your mate in mountains who died at a ford
After the stroke you were seen camping at Kaniere
With batwing tent, maps, diaries but without a penny
Possessions and money had no meaning or dues
It was the uncharted land that was treasure to you.

Cocoa will calm your nerves

All Blacks vs South Africa

The excitement builds up. Ablai and I will have our All Blacks jerseys on tonight and the snacks will be ready, and the beer chilled to the right temperature. Well, for me, Ablai will have to stick to Diet Coke.

It's a tough game to call, but on current form I will take the All Blacks. South African will be stung by the loss of their Captain Smit and still recovering from a bruising game.

Last week against Australia, South Africa had a glut of ball, but Australia used their nut and probed weaknesses in their defence. With the steady influence of Carter and Mauger, it sets Isaia Toeava up to get a feast of ball. My guess is the Boks will hesiate to go wide and play a tight forward game and use the kicking skills of Butch James and Montgomery to plug for touch. The AB's will use their pace in the backs and tries are likely to be scored by any one. Jerry Collins is due for a blinder. The Boks will have to neutralise him and McCaw and my bet is there will be a record number of people in the sin bin.

The big but for NZ is their ability to win the line out ball. Matfield, as captain, will be inspired, and will make it hard for the Kiwis to win as much ball as they would like.

Tonight, watching the game with my boy, Ablai brings back memories of listening to the series in 1960 when New Zealand toured South Africa. My Dad would wake me up at 1 a.m. tuning into Radio South Africa with a steaming mug of cocoa. I was 12 and had a brocken collar bone, sustained in a rugby match at Monticello ground in Dunedin We lost the first test 13-0 and the hero was Van Zyl, the Jonah Lomu-sized winger.

It won't be a 13-0 victory to the Boks today, but rather the ALL Blacks by 17 points.

Enjoy the game and if you don't drink beer, try cocoa. It calms your nerves.

Timurid Architecture

MAP OF THE WHOLE SILK ROUTE

I am currently reading everything I can on Turkestan, the ancient city in Southern Kazakhstan. in preparation for my visit on 28 June. I am reading about the Turkestan City and in particular, the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi. The mosque. which is situated in the city of Turkestan became the first Kazakh patrimony to be recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.It was commissioned in 1389 by Tamerlane or Timur the Lame. It replaced a smaller 12th Century Mosque built in honour of a great Sufi Master, Khoja Ahmed Yasavi (1103-06).The building was left unfinished when Timur died in 1405. It is one of the best preserved Timurid constructions. One of the most famous leaders of the old Kazakh Khanate was buried here and his tomb is something I look forward to visiting. My boy Ablai is named after Ablai Khan.
I have studied the splendid Timurud architecture in Herat, Samarkand, Bukhara and now onto Turkestan next week.
But where did this man Timur come from ? The empire of the Mongols became increasingly fragmented in the 14th century. One section, called the Chagatai Khanate, included the area northeast of modern Iran, parts of Central Asia and northwest of modern India. This included the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Turkestan. It was here that Timur emerged as a leader and conqueror.Between 1380 and his death in 1405 Timur's conquests included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Georgia, and parts of Anatolia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and India. At one point he occupied Moscow and he was beginning a campaign against China when he died. His capital was located first in Kish and later in Samarkand, north of the Oxus river. After his death, his empire was divided between his sons and grandsons, thus establishing the Timurid dynasty. His youngest son, Shahrukh (Shah Rukh) eventually reunited the kingdom, which was again divided between his sons Ulughbeg and Ibrahim Sultan.
"The Timurid period marks the apogee of colour in architecture, both in sheer technical expertise and in the astonishing variety of designs and textures. (Hillenbrand, 1999, p. 216-217)

Ole the Fisherman

OLE THE FISHERMAN

Ole, rough tough fisherman
On the icy North Sea
Gutting cod with scaly hands
Come and rescue me

Ole rough kind manager
With Tsunami victims by the sea
Saving people with shattered lives
Please come and grieve with me

Ole rough warm father
Guiding your children to see
Son serving in Afghanistan
How proud you must be.

CARTER AND STRAUSS

This is for you Fred.

You say my blog is boring so I will put the odd poem on rugby from time to time..

With the All Blacks about to teach South Africa a few lessons in rugby skills this Saturday, here's a poem about Dan Carter when he set a world record by scoring 33 points against the British Lions.

I was at the Johan Stauss Bar at the airport in Vienna when the game was being played.

Carter and Strauss

You don't pay schillings
At the Johan Strauss bar any more
As John Ts SMS bring me the score
Another airport another game
As the Lion's fortunes begin to wane

They don't accept schillings
So transit Vienna and transit Venus
At Wimbledon showing genius
As blond barmaids serve me wine
It's 21-13 to the ABs at half time
31 -13 another Carter try
The boutique sells Cartier ties
The bar frankfurters and mustard
While the Lion's game turns to custard

You don't pay schillings
The Euro's universal like the game
The Austrian currency went down the drain
Umanga's boys blow life into Strauss
As Carter & the boys bring down the house
The barmaids are blond
They smile and flirt
Makes a man feel a man
As the Lions bite the dirt

2 July Vienna 05 (Carter sets a world record by scoring 33 points)

So my website is boring Fred ?

Fred S said...
boring! how about a poem on rugby
June 20, 2007 1:10 AM

Fred I'll post one soon on rugby and would love your feedback. Thanks

Bob

Turkestan here we come

Turkestan here we come

I am currently reading everything I can on Turkestan in preparation for my visit later next week. I am reading about the City and in particular, the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi. The mosque. which is situated in the city of Turkestan became the first Kazakh patrimony to be recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.It was commissioned in 1389 by Tamerlane or Timur the Lame. It replaced a smaller 12th Century Mosque built in honour of a great Sufi Master, Khoja Ahmed Yasavi (1103-06).The building was left unfinished when Timur died in 1405. It is one of the best preserved Timurid constructions. One of the most famous leaders of the old Kazakh Khanate was buried here and his tomb is something I look forward to visiting. My boy Ablai is named after Ablai Khan.

I have studied the splendid Timurud architecture in Herat, Samarkand, Bukhara and now onto Turkestan next week.

But where did this man Timur come from ? The empire of the Mongols became increasingly fragmented in the 14th century. One section, called the Chagatai khanate, included the area northeast of modern Iran, parts of Central Asia and northwest of modern India. This included the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Turkestan. It was here that Timur emerged as a leader and conqueror.
Between 1380 and his death in 1405 Timur's conquests included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Georgia, and parts of Anatolia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and India. At one point he occupied Moscow and he was beginning a campaign against China when he died. His capital was located first in Kish and later in Samarkand, north of the Oxus river. After his death, his empire was divided between his sons and grandsons, thus establishing the Timurid dynasty. His youngest son, Shahrukh (Shah Rukh) eventually reunited the kingdom, which was again divided between his sons Ulughbeg and Ibrahim Sultan.

"The Timurid period marks the apogee of colour in architecture, both in sheer technical expertise and in the astonishing variety of designs and textures(Hillenbrand, 1999, p. 216-217)

We travel not for trafficking alone

Off to the Silk Route again - The Golden Road to Turkestan
I have spent decades exploring parts of the Silk Route in India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and to a lesser extent, in Iran and Europe.

The one part I have not been to is Turkestan, in Kazakhstan. Next week I go via Arabia to Central Asia in a magnificent flying machine. I plan to drive from Almaty and stop at Suyab which figures on Hsuan Tsang's ( early Chinese explorer) map and also Shalder and Otrar. Otrar was where the famour Al-Farabi was born and is a an uninhabited city which is over 2000 years old.

I will keep you in touch with my travels. For the lust of knowing what should not be known

Deaths on Mountains - Feedback J.E.S Lawrence

I hope your opening discussion on death in the mountains bears fruit... a big issue in my mind, and one that you and I engaged in personally ....we took on some biggies, and survived .... why? I think we were a) lucky, but b) were competent, thoughtful and strategic about what we did, and so we lived ... and the empty chairs dont (yet) have our names on them...
best J

Deaths on mountains - Why ?

I have just finished reading two superb books, Last Climb by Breashears and Salkeld and Tibet - Life, Myth and Art by Michael Willis.

Books like these pull me out of my slothfulness and make me realise that my life is pleasant, despite a heavy workload. But it was John Mallory's words, written in 1999, that opened a floodgate of understanding.

He wrote: " I am proud of my son's achievement, and my father's. But I would so much rather have known my father than to have grown up in the shadow of a legend, a hero, as some people perceive him to be."

How poignant ! As I read and re-read this quote I thought of the dozen and a score of close friends I have lost on mountains. My closest friend ever - Keith McIvor (1973) Bill Denz, Gary Ball, Rob Hall, Howard Laing,(1966) Richard Tilley and my cousin Mike Cooper in 1967, Kevin Carrol, Archie Simpson, Chris Jillet, Noel Sissions, Mary Atkinson, Annie Kearsely, Jeremy Young, Hannalore Scmatz and many others. How many people said of them , " I wish I had of known my father, mother, son, daughter or the one I love ?"

It made me realise why am alive, and so alive. Good luck to some extent but I seldom pushed myself past a danger point which I perceived could kill me..... Had I kept on going on the North Pole trip I could have easily punctured a lung with a broken rib, I turned back on a number of peaks in the Hindu Kush, I flagged away dangerous looking grade 5 rivers as  I feared hidden branches brought down by recent floods that could have snagged me, and held me under for a watery grave.

Recently my climbing companion in Peru, John Lawrence reminded me of one of the most difficult climbs of my life when I was 20. John writes:

“Have you followed the Simpson/Yates story of their saga on Siula Grande? I met Simon Yates recently, and could scarcely disguise my distaste for his choices... do you remember that tense descent on Mellizos north face in Peru where on the way down we dodged streaming, chunky gulley avalanches by hopping sideways onto the comforting rockface, and sitting pegged to the granite for hours, huddled, hummingbird antics beside us, meanwhile nestling the image between our feet of welcoming red tents on the ledge way, way, way down below us... as I recall it, we set a little `roulette', or standard.... something like ten minutes with no big stuff, and five minutes with no stuff at all before we felt it safe to resume our descent down the steep couloir... furthermore, on that epic ascent up onto Pumasillo's N ridge (phew!)... my memory was of those awesome, apocolyptic faces beneath us on both sides of our tiny stances on that tottering crap of a ridge with no belays at all to speak of... and geez, no wonder they all said it would never be climbed... and to my knowledge still hasn't!! I would truly welcome your own take on your memories....”
Why an early death ? There are times we need to push ourselves beyond our own self imposed limitations but in our spontanaity, we need to assess the degree of risk we are putting in front of us.

The world, this life, the people, the pains, this delectable landscape and our families are so important. We have lived through the dangerous 20’s, the thoughtful and family 30's, and survived the roaring forties, and now the reflective 50’s.

What beauty there is in the world of people and families.

We make a living by what we get
We make a life by what we give.

Charlie Douglas is a legend in New Zealand. His explorations in the second part of the 19th Century are second to none in the Exploration of the West Coast of the South Island. A poem I just finished. It needs brushing up a little and your feedback would be appreciated.
Bob

Charlie Douglas

So what was the inner spring that made you tick
In valleys where snow, ice, water and mica mix
Incessant rain and slippery logs
Mosquitoes, sand flies bush and bogs

And ah, paradise lurking in those hot pools
Stripped your rags far way from’ those fools’
As you soaked your matted beard and ropey hair
And a moment of thanksgiving, a silent prayer

Strong, sinewy and stringy as Weka meat
After years of amazing geographical feats
You lay awake, dreaming year after year
Many thought you were a man without a care
But you were putting the world together
While stranded for weeks in nor’westerly weather

Puffing, sucking the old brown briar
In your batwing tent you kindle a fire
No mortgage family possessions houses or barns
You're a freewheeling man with only socks to darn
A river to cross and a range to measure
Keeping a watchful eye on the wild weather
Weeks of rain and sodden clothes
Notebooks full of maps, observations and prose

Your thrills came from discovery and not wiley tarts,
Betsy Jane at your side, obedient and fast
Never answered back when you got it wrong,
The tuis, bellbirds and robins kept you in song

Your footprints were the first in many places,
Mountain top, gorges river and glaciers
The whiskey jar at the Forks Okarito and Scotts,
Discussing the world with fellow Scots
The jar was your best mate on the binge
You were one on those living over the fringe


Banking almost got you, wife kids and all
But marriage to you was like a pall
Your dreams wafted like smoke from your pipe
Slabs of rata your company during the night
The cursed danps got into every joint
Did you ever ask ‘whats the bloody point

Was it you Charlie or the others who were the fools?
Your maps, sketches and diaries over which generations drool
No Charlie it was the good deal you got
Harper, and others, you never tolerated that lot
Alpine Club braggarts you named them true
Canterbury amateurs who stole feats from you

It was Roberts McFarlane, Bannister and Teichy
They were soul mates of a similar physie
Staunch and modest friends who knew your strengths
Overlooked your weaknesses and came to your defence

The final years in Hokitika with Mrs Ward
Wife of your mate in mountains who died at a ford
After the stroke you were seen camping at Kaniere
With batwing tent, maps, dairies but without a penny
Possessions and money had no meaning or dues
It was the uncharted land that was treasure to you.

Many of us have lived in India or visited India. An incredible country.

But we often hear the phrase 'Why not?' And 'Why Not.'

I wrote this last year while living in India and recently polished it up a little.
Mother India calls us back and I answer 'Why Not ?


Why Not

Is it an expression of surprise?
Or non commitment of the wise
After 15 years in India hot
I am still searching for the meaning of WHY NOT.

There is yes and there is no
But who wants to be nailed to the spot
Safer to nod and sway your head
Smile or grin and say WHY NOT

Can I get a ticket on the 2.40 or 5 pm train ?
I’ve made the stationmaster an uncomfortable sot
So why lose your face with a trivial request
He examines the timetable and says WHY NOT

It can be a little of dis a little bit of dat
Planned nebulousity or ‘hard is my lot’
Grin and bear and shrug it off
Better to smile and say WHY NOT

Under the colonial yoke since yore
And bowing to hundreds of wily despots
Better to keep your head and pride
So when questioned just say WHY NOT

Collapsed one day on a Calcutta street
From Delhi belly and Bombay trots
I asked the doctor “Will I be cured”
He smiled professionally and said WHY NOT

Why Not and Isn’t it have got on my nerves
And I am convinced it is a sinister plot
Asked a friend from the intelligence service
‘Am I right’ I said, he replied ‘WHY NOT ‘

Some nights when wending a weary path
I drop into my local for a jug or a tot
I ask the waiter “Will India win”
He glances at the TV and says WHY NOT

Incredible India pulls you to her breast
Where the food and climate are equally hot
So many questions and answers you need
The one that will never let you down, is WHY NOT

Concentrated research I did for years on end
Questioning people for the meaning of its lot
Now I am none the wiser for my time
For when I asked positive or negative, I got WHY NOT

After years of tears frustration and all
I am beginning to fathom the reply of WHY NOT
So I phrase questions to avoid the phrase
And instead I get an equally frustrating “Is it Not ?

So after travelling in search of the truth
I discovered the master in the valley of Swat
Enlightened Sir ‘give me the meaning of life’
He mediated long and wisely said, WHY NOT

Fishmonger and a Shepherd

We had two neighbours when I was a boy
Jack Downes the fishmonger
And Len Sidell the Jakaroo and gardener.
Dad used to shell oysters in Jack’s shed
Over a bottle of whiskey
While Len sculptured an elegant garden
Leaving an original cabbage tree
And grew two macrocarpa trees into
A magnificent 4 sided Arch

Watching Jack shell oysters and
Len create a little haven of trees
Was art to me when I was three
And when Len’s border collie died
The shepherd was parted with his only love
He buried him under the cabbage tree
Jack and Len’s wives knew each other
Rita and Justine
But I never saw them talk in 20 years
One catholic and the other a Prody
Jack had a 35 Oldsmobile with soft leather seats
And when he stopped at the pub for a beer,
He would always bring me out a raspberry drink

We had a Saturday night ritual where Jack and Len gave
Me sixpence each to buy the Star Sports
And each gave me sixpence to spend
And often I bought Jaffas and Aniseed balls

They’re both dead now, the cabbage tree is a
Reminder of Len and his dog
And the hydranges still bloom long after Jack’s and Rita’s death
Both their houses stand tall and look over
The Mighty Pacific Ocean
Memorial to men who shaped my life
And the silent Rita and Justine

West Coast wedding

Rain dances on a tin roof
In a gold miners shed
My daughter is in pure white
The shed is lined with silk
Breakers drum on the beach
Guests drink Speights
And champagne flows
Next to tyres on a digger

Ceremony melts into simplicity
Vows exchanged
Rings given from gold dug
From beneath our feet
Earth, gold and sea
Birth death and marriage
Clouds hang limp
Lake an aging miner
And sand flies bite

Red Band gum boots
And swannies
Replaced by ill fitting suits
For a day


The ridge behind contains
More gold than dreams
But lovers have more
Dreams than gold
Walking along the edge.
Of hope and love

Waiho River Mouth

Waiho River Mouth

Ribbon-like white
Streaks the high horizon,
Where the ice oozes
Vertical to green.

From timeless boles
Ancient spars signal time
In dark leaf-stained water
Ancient insect cavort.

Starfish swim in rock pools
Flecked with glacier dust
Rivers retreat from intruders
Slicing the scarred landscape

Living is a Mega city like Jakarta is full of noise, colour, smells, bustle and traffic jams. Here is a small poem about going to work yesterday, 15 June 2007.

Jakarta - On my way to work

A clanging chain on a rusting cycle
Glides past sludge in open drains,
Skyscrapers and Dunkin’ Donuts
A handcart rots outside a graveyard
With four painted headstones
Where souls sleep restlessly
The Muzzien calls for prayer
Stacked wood feeds furnaces
In a Tofu factory
A leper’s hand reaches with downcast eyes
Veiled school girls walk with friends in tight jeans
Motor bikes dart and pour
Like rats in a frenzy through every gap
Herbal healers hawk in narrow alleys
Traffic jams at egg timer intersections
Cuploa’s and minarets punctuate
Hoardings and concrete towers

Essay on Faith

Essay on faith

Last Tuesday 9/11/2001 I watched the tragic events unfolding in the US with the terrorist acts in New York, Washington and elsewhere while on a Red Cross training course in France. Three days earlier Ahmed Shah Massoud and his friend Aseem were killed in Tajikistan by the same person suspected of the US attack. They were both good friends whom I met frequently.

I drank tea with Osma Bin Laden in 1996, when I met him in Laghman province in Afghanistan. He seemed a serious and likable man. Tea, like faith, is a connector, a healer and a leveler. I am sure God made tea as a ritual and ceremony of peace. I also drank many cups of tea with Massoud and Azeem. So why do tea drinkers kill ? Why were we born ?

Man’s inhumanity to man and inhumane killings have been part of my life. So has God’s love and blessings. But how does one write about a personal thing called faith ? It is like describing the intimate feelings I have for family, something unspoken and intensely personal.. But I will try.

Nicolas Bouvier, a Swiss writer and artist wrote, “ My belief is that one must have passed through fire oneself....to be able to sort out...the contents of those storehouses of sorrow, where fortunately we can also find, more often than we might have dared to expect...enough small miracles to motivate and encourage those in the field who are so often compelled, to quote a mediaeval Japanese poem, ‘to bear the unbearable and tolerate the intolerable.”

When I was 19, I traveled by sea from New Zealand to Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and saw my first storehouse of poverty and exploitation, especially in Peru. I spent four months in the high alta-plano living with the Quetchua Indians, the remnants of a once proud and sophisticated civilization: decimated by the Spanish. Colonization, another of the world’s evils which has been glorified in the name of God. There followed time in the Barriada (slums) of Lima where I saw extreme poverty. There I saw “Faith” , something spiritual and simple, from a non-material world giving them hope and the strength to survive. It helped shape my faith.

I saw my second storehouse of sorrow. Vietnam 1971. My first assignment overseas. Seeing the aerial bombing of villages and countless people killed or maimed for life, by naphalm, B 52’s, M 16’s, helicopter gunships and land mines made me see how the “other half dies.” .

It was so far from my Sunday school and Bible class days in New Zealand where we were told of God’s perfect world and moved wise men of camels across a make-believe desert in a sand pit, with paper palm trees. The World looked so perfect..

I soon found an ever increasing imperfect world off my shores, where I have spent most of my adult life..

In 1971, sitting in the bar at the Continental Palace in Saigon, I recall meeting that famous war correspondent, Martha Geldhorn, who had just come back from having been with US forces and she commenting on the futility of war and the deeper meaning of life...”That spiritual world up or out there,” she described so wistfully, and then dismissed the comment. She had her doubts about it. I knew she had been married briefly to Ernest Hemingway but I refused to raise that issue, for fear of being strangled by such a delicate woman. I thought at the time, it must have been more difficult living with Hemingway than covering any war.

I think most about my spiritual life a lot, but more specifically in bars, on mountains, in wars or when I see poverty and exploitation. Perhaps it is the biblical wine, wars, mountains and the good Samaritan. These places/people evoke strong emotions for me. Having a strong spiritual leaning to my life has helped me through incredibly difficult times.

I like to think I am a Christian...far from being a good one, and I try to pray most days, and the more difficult the going, the more and the harder I pray.

One memory haunts me, from 1995 in a hospital ward at Kharte Se hospital. At least 50 children/teenagers who had legs, hands, feet and legs blown off by landmines during the past few days, had to, twice a day, dip and then soak their freshly severed stump into plastic bags of iodine, to ensure the flesh and bone was clean before operating. The plastic bag would be held by a relative or parent. The first to dip their bloody stump would pierce the air with lachrymose scream of death and as each child being forced to dip their stumps, sometime having lost two legs and an arm, the screaming built up to build up to a crescendo for two to three minutes. During that period, I used to ask “ Why God, where were you when that child was out gathering wood and stepped on a land mine.? “

Today when I pick up my young son, I marvel at the delicacy of, and the simple joy a baby gives and it makes me think deeply about the ephemeral nature of life. children.

Over the years I’ve been inside the storehouse of sorrow in wars, floods, earthquakes., famines, droughts, landslides, cyclones and sheer and simple poverty and exploitation.

Religions, spirituality and heaven, hell and the afterlife fascinate me. For me I believe in the one God and a Christ-like figure. I haven’t seen Christ but believe I have spoken to him. I also feel close to all the prophets of the Bible and the Koran, the heroes of Avesta’s, a canonical work of the Zarathustra, the Ramayana and the Mahabatra fascinate me. I have wandered deeply into Buddhist territory and thought and am constantly aroused by the Sufi poets. But above all, the spirit of the nomads of the great steppes and the Polynesians who constantly challenge my thoughts as the were able to take on new religions, shrug them off like winter coats, or old canoes, and go back to the spirits and roots of their ancestors at will.


I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth

What moves me most is mountain landscapes and my dream of being a snow flake wafting from the sky. To fall on a mountain pass or a col, or even atop of a mountain peak. To later to be part of a bergschrund, a snowy arete, a snow field, a neve, a glacier, a crevasse and in my anger and power, an avalanche. And then when I melt, that long trip down the river to the sea. The processes of snow, ice, glaciers, and mountain geology fascinate me and have drawn me back in awe time and time and time again. While reveling in the beauty of the mountains it reminds me our life on this earth is as ephemeral as a snowflake.

I once could ski like the wind down mountainsides in New Zealand, France, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. I often repeat the runs in my mind. What keeps me traveling and working these days is the anticipation of seeing something new and the sense of awe evoked by architecture, landscapes, people and their cultures. To close my eyes and to look back at the history behind these special places, provides a sense of place and purpose in my life Frequently the kaleidoscope of contrasts, from awe to awfulness, between pomp, power and poverty, I feel sick and angry and ask why is it so ? But when I slow down and meditate, I know God is part of the world’s latticework of life, and my anger dissipates.

The excitement and challenge of a new job, leading a new team, forming a new relationship or taking a ride (challenge) with nature such as climbing a mountain, exploring a seldom visited mountain region, kayaking a wild river, kayaking across the sea to some distant point, competing in a triathlon when you don’t know the course, teaching my child to swim and planting a garden or a tree is part of God’s expectations of us.

.
Above my desk in Delhi is a photograph I took in December (1999) in Agra of a inlaid marble panel from the Taj Mahal, the world’s greatest monument to love. Sometimes I dwell on the deeper meaning of love, love Agape. But as New Zealand’s poet Denis Glover writes about me and so many others, I am a thistledown planted on the wind , yearning for new challenges and things to stimulate my thought. Not long before my Mother died - who was born deaf, and the most and influential woman in my life - told me “ Don't die ignorant , try everything once.”

Everyone blames God when things go wrong and forgets to praise him when they go right.

I’ve tried most things in the material and spiritual world. All I can say is “ Thank God for this world, each dawn, sunset, flower, wave and child; there is a life hereafter.”

Geneva

A lonely chime
Rustles life into
Slumbering insects
In fallow fields
Where Knox and Calvin
Wandered deep in thought

A lazy chime
Rolls over a
Once puritanical city
Drained by the Rhone
And gathering greed
Veiled by a humanitarian face


Geneva, 15 September 2005

Afghan Wind


Whisper wind, whisper higher
Over mosaic dome and silver spire
Blow on in a peaceful hush,
Don't disturb the Hindu Kush

Whisper wind, whisper loud
Through stormy and knotted clouds
Twist back the timeless desert sands
To Alexander, Chengis Khan and Timurlane

Tell us wind, tell us all
Of those long and desperate wars
Thrice the British tried to part
Your lands beneath the Khyber Pass

Tell us wind, tell us more
Of home-forged guns, knives and swords
Restricting all foreign powers
Always free as almond flowers

Whisper wind, whisper proud
Landlocked people, women under shroud
Bearded men of determination
Children working for a nation

Whisper wind, whisper higher
To a faith rid of earthly desire
And to Allah absolute
Whisper wind of these truths

Samanghan, Afghanistan, April 1976

Mount Cook Revisited

Mount Cook Revisited

Mountains never change
Except their faces
People never change
Except their faces

Jan 75

Mountain Roadman

Mountain Roadman

Flesh against wood and metal
His mettle against mountains of rock
Now broken in body and spirit
He who carved these roads aloft

His face was as worn as his shovel
Building roads in the Hindu Kush
And his ageing back bent double
From all the boulders he'd pushed

His reward but a sear of flour a day
Received humbly in callused hands
As he prays, "Allah O Akbar"
His reward can't be in this land

Anjouman, Badakhshan, Afghanistan. June 1995

Mountains of Our Mind

In starting off a new blog, I would like to post a poem I wrote in 1994 while working in Afghanistan. It is the title of one of my books, Mountains of our Mind - Afghanistan, published by tara press, New Delhi. The book can be purchased through the websites www.indiaresearchpress

Mountains of our Mind

From the courtyard of our dreams
To the mountains of our mind
We escape the blood and violence
To a white world sublime

Born on the edge of a cloud
I saw snowflakes form
Together we danced a ring of fire
Before the day was born

We travel on a moonship
Where lunacy dictates
Where love is like a mountain
And where there is no hate

We scud along the summit ridge
Where the updrafts push
I am the King of Kabul
And lord the Hindu Kush

Panjcher Valley, June 1994

New beginnings...

Like a snowflake on the desert's dusty face, we cannot predict how long we will be in this life. I hope these jottings of a Nomad may inspire someone, somewhere...