The following is written in memory of my good friend, David C. Buxbaum, who passed away recently on Saturday May 13, 2023. *** The Rain and Mist over Lijiang When last I looked, the mist still hung suspended over the mountains of Lijiang. For two days the rain had formed a scattered trail of tears…… Continue reading The Rain and Mist over Lijiang
A Eulogy to Granny Sarah
What wonderful virtue does the moon possess that allows it to rise each evening? Whether in Nairobi or Shenzhen, I see the same moon in the sky, just as I see the same sun rise and set in either city. If they are not the same, how many thousands of suns and moons trace a…… Continue reading The Peony (or How Long Is The Path From Death To Birth?)
Associated Press announced recently that 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria. At first, The New York Times web site placed a modest link beneath a flurry of headlines about a so called NAFTA deal, the passing of a statesman and the profile of an actor. Belatedly, it added an editorial. Most media…… Continue reading Opinion: The Lost Ones (or The Other 9/11)
In the Tang dynasty geckos were crushed in mortars to prepare a potion, which was then applied to mark a young girl’s arm. If she lost her virginity, its red color would change. This fantastic potion was used to regularly inspect and discipline women. The poet Li Shangyin wrote: The red Shou Palace lies in…… Continue reading Guest Of The Sea (or The Gecko’s Virgin Blood)
About the time Li Shangyin and I were meeting in Shenzhen, the drug wars in Central America had intensified. The United States was still a country that drew the oppressed, huddled masses. However, there was a growing sentiment in the country that change was coming too rapidly. America was turning brown and many were afraid.…… Continue reading Westwards From Jingmen (or When Beethoven Met The Migrant Kids)
A Reply Sent From The Southwest Expedition (or How Did Time Begin, And Why Does It End When One Dreams?) When I was a child time vanished, or perhaps nothing ever changed. When I made my first deep breath, the baobabs and acacia trees of the savannah and the tea and coffee bushes of the…… Continue reading A Reply Sent From The Southwest Expedition
We writers are the greatest of narcissists – we make a profession of consuming ourselves and then try to sell what we spit out. Books themselves, the paper kind, give me much pleasure. All my life, I haven’t cared if they were soggy and wet, dry, burnt, or new as long as I could hold…… Continue reading Again to Official Pei Ming’s Abode (or On what did Atlas stand?)
My mother was the first of her generation to be born in America. Her father and mother escaped Russian pogroms when they were children. She was born under Sagittarius, in Brookline, Massachusetts. She didn’t know (or care) she was white and Jewish until her parents and friends learned of her Kenyan fiancé, and her mother…… Continue reading Jasper Lake (or After The Formlessness, Who Gave Things Shape?)
I do not remember the first word I said. It was not Baba, because my father was rarely around, and didn’t much like me (from what I have heard). It may have been Ma or Mama (but I only say that because of popular convention). Our childhood shapes our adulthood, and therefore if I extrapolate…… Continue reading A Little Rain
When Li Shangyin visited J.S. Bach in Leipzig in 1736, he was surprised at the size of the great composer’s family. Children were everywhere, under the stairs, by the gate, even lying on the harpsichord. Although the school building was cramped, the view over the moat was pleasant. A faint mist covered the idyllic countryside,…… Continue reading My Cherished Son
Two Pages Of 40 Verses For Li Gong In Return For His Painting Of The Pines A cool dew covers ten thousand plants1 I open the scroll to reveal the old pines Everywhere the mountains are covered with a sea of green How they grow on such peaks remains to be seen? Unaided, their lonely…… Continue reading Painting of the Pines
A Tang Poet From Nairobi 