I have hope for the girls of SouthEast Asia when I see this

Their faces turned towards an open door, a light, a pillar. Someday you will hold up half the sky

Yes, you.

Phnom Penned

If you tire of life, go to a Cambodian village and teach the children how to play Telephone

Or, Musical Chairs

Some might look at you like this

And at least this one will be too distracted peeling a banana with a butcher knife

Or chasing chickens by the water pump

But they will escort you,smiling, back through the rice fields

And squeal in delight when you hi- 5 them goodbye

And you just might feel a mysterious contentment as your head lolls sleepily against the bus window, green after brighter green passing by.

Awaysick

A strange thought joined me at the corner of street 240 and. . . random unmarked alleyway. I didn’t ask his name. But he is a snappy dresser. I know who he is. It is the familiar-faced idea that perhaps I have been missing Cambodia for 23 years. And then we turned the corner into a whole new street- and I wondered how many countries I’m lonely for that I have never seen. I asked him. He has no idea.

God in the corners

What are the rice fields?

It reminds me of Walt Whitman:

*I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

If all else fails, I'm going to live on a rice farm

They waft coolness- the sweetest clear air I’ve ever smelled- new, and soft.

I felt as if I had traveled to the oxygen farm and got to eat of it fresh dripping from the tree. It’s that new.

Their gentle whispers kiss your ears as you glide by on motorbike, beckoning you.

*Walt Whitman: From Song of Myself (1855)