There is no message to post home,I do not wish you here. Sea and sky framed in snow and stone.No words scribbled on the margins,I’m tired of explaining, translating every emotion. Unprotected veins of ice,stalactites drip, echo, drip,dissolving cliffs to sand, walls...
Wrapped in the fabric of my pink dupatta, Begum Bazaar is the fabled navel in the eye of antiquity. The streets stomach quaintness mutely, like measured gulps of Irani chai. We walk on, moving in a soft-haze of sounds and colors. You propose a game of make-believe. We...
Dear Mom, Hi! I keep wanting to call you, but this is easier. I’m writing from Laugarvatn, Iceland. The wind has been shaking my wooden, low-gabled room with its many windows for three non-consecutive days. Yesterday it took a break and let me catch up on sleep. It...
Photo: “The Green Line in Nicosia (Cyprus)” by Marco Fieber is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 I would like to tell you about the kafenion, about the cat that lived there, and the cheese rinds I fed it. About the coffee-shop owner who was hit by a car, and the...
We catch our breath near the beheaded buddha at the temple’s summit. Beyond us, the crater of Mt. Merapi breaks through a ring of clouds, while among the bell-shaped stupas, the gap-toothed man snaps photos of a young couple. Sunlight rises over the central stupa’s...
Photo by Mk2010, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Father and I are on the upper deck of the Star Ferry, crossing Victoria Harbor, approaching the cinderblock skyline of Hong Kong Island. We’re coated in sweat from the humidity. I understand why Mother decided to...
