Poems from 2023
One poem written in 2023 (also I wrote none in 2024). All poems by Mingji Liu.
Himalayan poems
2023 · Mingji Liu
9-4-23
Apprehension
alights as my flight dips into Lord Buddha’s birthplace
what have I done?
Touching down into this undated, hilly night/
10-4-23
A buffalo died for my momos today. This much is true.
Then I found a little durbar whiskey, a perfect amber sin,
and felt much better about it.
11-4-23
I clockwise the stupa, white as the soul of a mountain.
The earth turns about me and I must bow in turn.
(somebody must sell cheap crampons in thamel)
12-4-23
Dear diary, today on the bus a Nepali
woman told me I was handsome.
That almost makes up for eight ashen
honking hours, rumbling down a
serpent of madness complete.
13-4-23
Waterfalls. Wild marijuana.
Ngadi and Ghermu and Jagat.
Village names that roll like fruits in one’s
mouth.
Like these pomegranate seeds, redder than
Lali Gurans.
14-4-23
Wild beehives on the trail to Tal, stalactited to the
cliff walls. Clinging to the idea of
a valley. its winds, rock slides,
tree groans.
15-4-23
Mutt’s acapella upon blackest
Chame
A cold, fitful sleep.
16-4-23
Apple juice flavoured with massif views
Ice-wept waters feeding five-coloured flowers
Prayer wheels a’turning while my dal bhat’s churning.
17-4-23
my hair is seabuckthron, my lungs’ jeep dust,
my skin gompa plaster, my bones kindling stacks.
my thoughts are street dogs – loitering, roofless
but my eyes, these are the frozen peaks themselves,
growing bigger, ever bigger
18-4-23
Acclimatising to high breeze, tight blood,
bad breakfasts.
A holding pattern of cinnamon rolls, lama blessings and handwrung
socks.
The vulture crowns this glacial sky, silent,
gazing,
patron saint of traveller’s patience.
19-4-23
Three pale trekkers smaller
than the furthest cloud, suspended on a frost-kissed bridge.
Juniper leaves, alpine brush
bosomed in this glacial rest.
Horse hooves… mala chants…
fading with the herder’s return.
20-4-23
Ode to a yak! Rocking to unseen currents.
Hairy old soul of the hilltops, grassward stooping,
his face is rugged, wetly lyrical.
He’s the blues musician of Thorung La, soloist of snowfields,
watch him compose the slushfall with his
musk, his grunts, his gravity.
21-4-23
The big day. A cold champa.
Trudged and trudged and
into the snowstorm and into
the dawn and into the
mountain’s claws and into
the fluids of my living heart,
of my brain’s dazed pulse,
and we kept on going and kept
on going. Eventually settling – into
that holy temple where we
crawled on our knees to see
its eternal flame.
22-4-23
Searing skin hot spring near-plunge driving
walking half-frosted shit sludge slipping
jagged steps a pint of beer stoner chatter
with fresh landslides
Is it no wonder I meditated
so poorly this evening?
23-4-23
Ghorepani means
“horse water”, it means
the micro-tears in my quads
as I sweated up ancient steps that
a baby goat could dance. It means
the sullen rhododendron forest, waiting for
next year’s spring, it means thunder flashings
the false promise of rains. It means an apple pie,
as American as the grinning Americans around the
fireplace where the porters sat also, wondering how
many strides further, away from their village away from
their back and neck muscles. It means the water buffalo
that grazed an improbable angle above us, ruminating with
its cud and its beautiful polished eyes.
24-4-24
Three-thousand steps to Hile
in the drizzle. Three-thousand knee bends.
Three-thousand ankle creaks – potential slips –
thoughts – daydreams – three-thousand
lusts, frights, tightenings, rages, loves rushing
dead-on to chin slam nose crack spine tumble down
three-thousand more mindless roads not and never taken.
25-4-23
Nayapul, the end began to unveil itself,
ribboning out in a jeep to Pokhara, from good road then bad;
DIGESTIVES (the healthy choice), JASMINE PAINTS;
from farm to river to town and more town
till the world became an unbearable village once more.
A fire atop the mountain briefly
illuminates.
Embers, orange fadings, are but echoes
of people come and gone.
26-4-23
Our walk, finale, guideless,
along Pokhara’s jungle spine to Shanti Stupa.
Peaceable glow in a peaceless process.
I napped all afternoon in a dingy bed /
From what exhaustion? From where? The heat?
The food? / Or from grief and joy of letting them
go from my palms?