N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 3 : S p e c i a l E d i t i o n

L o n g P o e m M a s t e r p i e c e s o f t h e P o s t b e a t s

CLIFF FYMAN

Photo by Barbara Henning.

Lines Written in a Remote Area of Nepal

It’s getting late in the trip

and though I don’t want it to end I

do want to eat food I miss at odd

moments a crow circling

icy sky’s temple pagoda

Melting snow

is tonight’s drinking water

blank white rectangle

shimmering far down valley

is handmade paper

drying in watery light

In a nun’s clean mud cell a blue

curtain casts a blue light from

a snow sun. Sister Tsering

Chenjom says I remind her of

her brother and I say

she reminds me of my sister

who likes to laugh is tender

toward me and religious too

Will I ever return?

Sister asks. If I could.

No arguments here

only simple statements

like, “Please come to kitchen

and eat rice”

Everything sounds distant

8,000 feet in thin air

Children call to each other

through the blue

wind

Extinct trees

that used to grow here

are tiny bushes today

Rice won’t grow

but potatoes will

I don’t want to burden

anyone with my questions

but be a man

who dives under ice

and surfaces with clear solutions

Hail!

is pelting my smiling

upturned face

Where do you go when you

feel sick

from events no one

can see or touch?

If I go into myself

all the way

where do I come out?

On Begu Mountain, today

[Originally published in Napalm Health Spa: Report 2008. Used by permission of the author.]

Cliff Fyman studied with Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman in Spring 1977 at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. At a snowbound Kitkitdizze in 1982, Gary Snyder instructed him, "Read Homer... Chaucer... Dante... Shakespeare... Joyce."