Song

as the northern part of the trip comes towards an endpoint...

the last full day in chiang mai and a good one, guitars and chat and a stabilising knee, although now the calf is swollen with water retention; ho hum, another day another pharmacy...

Later we found a Korean barbecue, plush place where a house band offered competence upon jazz standards...but the singer...imagine, if you will a thai Billie holliday, the later ragged lady day voice fracturing upon phrasing, beautiful but diminished in fragility and yet, and yet, a spell was cast upon me and the room changing upon her breath as she cast spells in shy solitude; six hours early and sixty years late in autumnal tone...a memory to stumble into dreams.

And last night, also, ni, li and Wang from the Chinese group in pai got in touch and we found ourselves in a smaller group talking beyond the witching hour...strange companions chattering of the next possibility, the next meetings: borderless kinsfolk upon divergent paths, dreamers all, and here, the circle complete, the scent of an ending upon our heels, we took flight upon darkened streets and drifting upon echoed laughter found some final songs upon the balcony.

And then changed plans...and so, South towards another return, the three of us retaining the moment a little longer...