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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THREE SILENCES IN THAILAND, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: Beside the mekong's silt-thick flow Last Line: I bear no offering but the abstinence of silence. Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Silence; Thailand | |||
Beside the Mekong's silt-thick flow, trees studded with flat-leaved epiphytes, as a woman might weave flowers in her hair, stretch the languor of their branches from riverbank to dirt road but are soundless in my foreign mouth which has no name to call them. In the bus station, she and I smile and wait; she points to my hair, unpins her own, spilling its crow-gloss over her breasts. Among the shouts of children and blasts of exhaust I twine her a braid of tactile night. Confined in the pillar of shadow made by his walls, right palm open, a lotus in his lap, Wat Si Chum's Buddha smiles from his height. Lips tranquil as wings at dusk hover benedictions in the air above. Knowing only the words for a Christ in pain, I bear no offering but the abstinence of silence. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALIEN WOMEN; SONGKHLA, THAILAND by KAREN SWENSON AN AMERICAN IN BANGKOK by KAREN SWENSON BACKGROUND AND DESIGN by KAREN SWENSON FISHERMAN IN SONGKHLA by KAREN SWENSON GETTING A PURCHASE by KAREN SWENSON HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 3. THAILALND by KAREN SWENSON |
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