Shadows

"so pass to me the parting glass,
Goodnight and god be with you all. "

On these days there's a change; the romantic notions of travelling become less a song of freedom and turn instead to transience...and so chris to rishikesh, aj to pokhara and ching hua to Calcutta...so many partings these last days, too many, and a last day in varanasi to fall. A ticket to gorkapur tonight and then the road north to Nepal and katmandu...probably...but...

this last week the song of the weaver girl has drifted upon the silver river, woven in mists and whispers, a song of distances and possibilities, of impossibles and unexpected dreams...all that's beautiful has a price...but sometimes...

and so we watch friendships birth and disperse: these days condensed upon drifting paths, where months become days and borders are misplaced...sometimes (Servus liebe hexe) a lifetime friendship, others a bright moment casting light as they burn...others are something else, changing maps and the illusions of certainty in those places where words flounder...and time need pass, allow distances to form upon us, allow some fragments of objectivity to pierce our dreams...and yet upon the seventh day of the seventh month a magpie bridge...

ganges in morning light silvered grey flowing, paths lead elsewhere now and the siren song of solitude calls; songlines and dreamtime, how do we sing this day?