Light sparkling off the lagoon and flooding the afternoon spaces with its invasive qualities. The shade is precious and shade with a fan is twice precious. Discussions of the local and the hyper local. Of dress and of observance of deals and of meals. The breath of conversation when my friend slows, slurs, holds his breath, "They put so many resources into those roundups." A conversation killer? No he has lots to go. It's the proverbial mighty stream. The head monk of the police ponsala here screaming obscenities. The government supporting him. He is a Buddhist missionary in the filthy Tamil east, an araliya flower smelling sweetly next to the dung heap and dogshit of the terrorists' realm. There's plenty to talk about and go over and remember and recollect and mourn.
Those moments of holding your breath when the moments stop and stretch. Silence as an exertion of power, negotiating with the Kattankudy merchant for ten minutes barely a word spoken while you sit in the driver's seat blocking his anyway unused driveway and he stands to you. I am not questioned. I am not a point of conversation. But I am there. I have been brought for some kind of presence. And I add to silence because I can't talk. Maybe I'm a part of the power.
Lost in thought with so many observations going around and begging to get discussed or analyzed or a anyway to get recorded. Observations to discuss over and over. Observations to ponder. Observations to put aside for next time. Observations to bury. Observations to find things by. To find new ideas. To store new ideas. To generate new ideas. To ponder with your head and heart. To make real or to keep in the abstract.
Lost in thought with depth of feelings depth of wondering depth of transmitting. What transmits? A breath of a held breath. What breathes? A person, a snake, a leaf, the light.
The coconut flowers as graceful as can be. Utterly woody and inedible. Is it true they have no enemies? No parasites? Nowhere to go but to larger woodiness? How did this woodiness evolve and why this conservatism, this embeddedness with lignin, this lignification, this growth toward heaviness, this persistence in heat and breeze and drought and wind? Where is that thought and how can't you get lost in it?
What about that sunrise today? From the panic of waking at 4:20, an irrelevant starry hour, sometimes C an hour of roosters and forest birds and sometimes not, the moments ticking by as you lie on the wet pillow on the two towels put there to absorb the night sweat, this with the door open and fan revolving so you lose yourself in thought and you lose yourself in sound. What about that purposeful moving down the stairs with bike lock in hand with room lock in pocket with purpose to leave the premises and glide into that still darkish light and hear that kovil music streaming, seaming, stentorian and braided like so many galaxies of tunefulness and not-tunefulness and chords and words and rhythms and twangs of sounds alien to you but not to the people who have listened to them for centuries and in this village the karnatic sounds multiply and jump off of metal fencing such neat metal fencing such sincere metal fencing hiding hiding hiding like everything is hidden, only reaching through the sense of sound a hose or water flowing or pans clattering or voices or the tick click of a motorbike backing out of the gate to ride through the cow lanes in the red reddening light.
What about that sunrise over towering clouds clouds that burst clouds that build clouds that go loose and rain juice clouds that pop and clouds that collapse and clouds that fluctuate and grow and dim and fan out and become dusky in their own shadow, that red sun behind them and the idea: how many resources are put into a sunrise.
How the waves of the ocean must power to the shore or among themselves farther out just so, just so. How the cows must find their path and a motorbike must cut that path, how the breeze must not be in the morning as it is in the afternoon how the fishermen must assemble and get in their boats and make the same movements of their bodies each boat with men doing the same movement as it was wrought in time immeasurably long ago and taught father to son and father to son and father to son for how many centuries? Or longer? This also is part of the mobilization of the morning. The resources becoming enlivened by a light at once gentle and caressing and suddenly when it is upon you as hot and direct as any afternoon sun storm. How the chlorophyll in every quivering leaf is activated to absorb light and pass it on to the next chlorophyll molecule and set the wave of photosynthesis in action. How the dogs must lie and then stop lying as they wander the still not hot surfaces of the roads how the fruit must ripen and the storefronts open and the walkers walk and the bicycle riders bicycle and motorbikes beep and the tuktuk drivers pick up their first ride of the day. This is done village wide. This is the mobilization. Of resources to make a morning as women and men pick flowers for offerings and verges are swept and the temple areas are swept and set and the music is reverberated off the metal speakers and the lights are switched off and fires are built and smoke is sent sailing and spiraling. These are the mobilizations. These are the pre sunrise moments. These are the thoughts that make you lost in thought.
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