finding a lookout,
a thousand cares evaporate
in endless green and blue

escalators and old billboards....

descending the stair,
a woman stares back blankly,
seventy years ago

yellow moon
yellow moon half-slung, west,
cerulean sky

I have been reading the poems of Li Qingzhao, a female poet who wrote in the 12th Century in the late Song dynasty. Li was adept at the Ci-Poem, which was originally a kind of melody tuned to folk music, but which later developed into a new form of written verse. Lines were of different lengths and the poems have a fixed number of (Chinese) characters conforming to strict meter and rhyme schemes.

She wrote many of these poems though only about 70 survive and she is renowned in China for her mastery of the form. Li's life was informed by a few shattering events which coloured her perspective. In 1127 the Northern Song fell to a Jin invasion and her family fled south. Two years later, her beloved husband died of typhoid fever. It is fair to say that she never really got over these losses, as the superb poem that follows only too amply shows.

Spring Ends.

The wind has subsided,
Faded all the flowers:
In the muddy earth
A lingering fragrance of petals.
Dusk falls. I'm in no mood to comb my hair.
Things remain, but all is lost
Now he's no more.
Tears choke my words.

I hear "Twin Brooks'" is still sweet
With the breath of spring.
How I'd, too, love to go for a row,
On a light skiff.
I only fear at "Twin Brooks" my grasshopper of a boat
Wouldn't be able to bear
Such a load of grief.

(Twin Brooks was a well-known beauty spot and resort at that time.)

Freedom is both a blessing and a curse. In the West, we enjoy freedoms that our ancestors could neither have imagined nor conceived of. Not knowing that you can have something, nor that it's realisation is even possible, is not painful. What you never had cannot be a loss. How can you miss what never was?

At the far edge of freedom, a place where we now seem to reside, is a location of seemingly endless (consumer) choice, of ever-expanding rights, a withering of custom and tradition, a challenge to any and all censorship and the normalisation of the private become public. There is much to be commended in a lot of this change, for who would want a return to the conditions of 50 years ago, where half the population was repressed, where a novel like Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned, where authority rarely was challenged. Native Australians could not vote in an election until 1967.

Like all revolutions, this freedom project has probably gone well beyond what was wise. Democracies are not always adept at handling change and once freedoms are conceded, it is hard to reel them back in. Amongst the major errors of our time are the proliferation of pornography in the public space (principally the internet but elsewhere too), the untrammelled freedom of "the market" in people's lives (choice, choice and more choice) and a pronounced decline in public standards of dress, behaviour and speech. I know it's not a trendy thing to say, but punctuating every sentence with expletives is not a freedom of speech issue. In this rush to unshackle the perceived injustices or impertinences of the past, personal responsibility has taken a shellacking. It only takes a small minority to transgress for social relations to begin unwinding.

Before I am accused of fuddy-duddyism or the like, it is not my approaching dotage that persuades me of this view, for I have always felt thus, but a need to be in the debate, if only as a footnote. Freedom of speech this is, of the kind that tries to persuade, and is open to persuasion. It is not hectoring nor obscene nor entirely sure of itself. But it is speech that is worth having and encouraging, no matter what the point of view.

One of the champions....

My workaholic wife has Tuesday's off so we planned to have lunch at one of our favourite little cafe's, Hana, in Leura. This little Mountain's gem served Japanese izakaya-style food, good, down-to-earth meals that did not cost a lot. Ann loved the tempura udon, a bowl of fresh seafood and vegetables deep fried in that light Japanese batter, neatly arranged on top of a bed of rice. I rarely eat large amounts at a sitting so a plate of gyoza and a bowl of miso soup were more than adequate, and delicious to boot.

Where am I going with this? Upon checking the opening hours this morning I found, to my genuine surprise and sadness, that Hana was permanently closed. The chef has retired after decades in the game. We wish him well and want to say a heartfelt thank you for the great food and simple ambience.

Arigatou gozaimashita.

Nothing lasts forever.

Those who may occasionally dip into this blog (zero!-ed.) will know that I have been quite involved in helping my wife with her partner visa application. It is a long process and the onus is on the applicant to provide sufficient reason in writing, together with copious documentation. The purpose is to show that the relationship is genuine and ongoing. There are immigration agents who, for a sizeable fee, will guide you through the process. We did not use an agent. For the purposes of our visa application, I was the agent. It is genuinely exhausting.

But the good news is that Ann has been granted an 820 visa, a subclass that confers provisional residential status pending the final outcome in 12 months or so. Ann wants to bring her daughter Athitaya(JJ) from Thailand, something which will delay her own permanent settlement by some months. Of course, I have been helping my wife again in completing the initial visa application on behalf of her daughter.The rest is up to the folks in Bangkok.

I guess the point that I want to make is that, despite the unpleasant rhetoric coming out of Canberra, a fair process is being followed by public servants. Sure, its hard to do and there are multiple hoops to jump, but it seems, even to my sceptical way of thinking, reasonable and equitable. Alas, if only the same fair go could be applied to refugees, we could all hold our heads a little higher. The problem is purely political and therein lies the solution.

sunset calls again-
clouds like primped pillows
in a golden mansion

English is a rich language full of nuance. It is also vast and a little eccentric. My dear wife often complains to me about the number of synonyms, which she finds frustrating. Of course, I find this trove of potential words wonderful. The language brims with choice.

By way of example, take the windscreen on a car. The other day on the way home, Ann told me that the mirror was dirty. I was clear that she meant the windscreen. "You mean there's a different word for this," she said, indicating the windscreen, "and this?" she continued, pointing to the rear-view mirror.

I told her that one was a windscreen, a window in the front of the car, and the other was a mirror. One was reflective, the other designed to be seen through. In Thailand, she reported back, there is only one word for mirror and window and windscreen. Difference is indicated by context. Well good to get that learnt, I thought. But where is the room for a Shakespeare in that system? I kept the last sentence to myself, fearing violent retribution.

English may offer more latitude for expression than Thai but it still throws up the most annoying usage. Consider the sentence, "It is what it is." I don't know who first coined this gem (perhaps the same wordsmith who first wrote, "Life's a bitch and then you die.") but it deserves an early burial. Ostensibly a poor cousin of "That's life" or "Such is life", it suffers from having none of the latter's mildly melancholic overtones. Ned Kelly might be forgiven for being so brief, as he did have a noose around his neck at the time.

"It is what it is" is a lazy copout for people who don't want to think about a more complex response. It forbids further analysis and shuts down inquiry. English is such a rich language and a mind is a powerful and marvelous tool. Please engage the former with the latter.

Ann and I have been attending to numerous matters Buddhist over the past few days. I am sometimes not sure exactly what her plans entail nor why, but I am happy to go along and make a little merit. For a Westerner, the arcane ways of Thai Buddhism provide a fairly endless source of fascination and not a little amusement at times. I don't mean any disrespect for my mirth comes mostly at my own expense, my clumsiness and ignorance of practices being sufficient cause.

Thai Buddhism has a towering theology and cosmology that I will likely never really comprehend on anything more than a superficial level. Still, I enjoy the liturgy and chanting, the ceremonies and coming together of community. I especially like the communal meal afterwards, towards which all the congregants contribute. The West may be falling into a more parlous state because we have allowed ritual to fall into abeyance, where once it occupied an important part of daily life.

On Saturday we went to our favourite Thai town shop, Two doors, which appears, sadly, to be closing. Two Doors was hosting a visiting monk from Thailand, a man who has come to raise funds for the orphaned children of parents who have died of HIV. He was a power of a presence, exuding grace and calm in spite of the difficult work he must do. Ann had her picture taken with him as part of the offertory. The other shot is the shrine area of Wat Buddharangsee, shortly before the service.