This is a village that time forgot. And in forgetting, it received a kind of blessing. The white guardians have stood here fifty million years, since the day the two continents leaned into each other and never stopped leaning. The same collision is happening elsewhere now, in rooms with no weather in them, with machines pressed against the edge of what a mind can do, and pushing at a rhythm the mountains woud not recognise as time at all. Astam keeps the old rhythm without knowing. A road bows before it climbs. Chai goes round, hand in hand. And the sun, finally, laid flat across the valley like a hand of blessing, gives everything and asks of nothing.
This is a village that time forgot, where the rhythm of earth and sky still keeps its old time.
Crimson star bursts open, a thousand seeds packed like small red galaxies, life pulsing on its stalk.
Sky catches fire in rose and saffron and for a moment the world holds its breath
A friend, fat with summer, kneels like a pilgrim at the cathedral of petals. the world is completely perfect.
Beneath the white bearded Annapurna the shala listens to ten thousand years of silence
A sea of fallen stars and golden hearts. even the smallest flowers know how to let go.
Clouds float like slow silver thoughts across a whole blue country of sky
Rings of sun caught swimming in golden broth. the mountain garden served warm.
Mustard fields blaze beneath the closing light. a valley painted the colour of longing.
In stone wall, nooks rest. each one a little intention made visible.
And then, the great white mountain rises like an ancient god, waiting
Stone moon-halves cup the earth, arms open, drinking the last burning kiss.
