Living In The World Poem by Charlotte Peters Rock

An exercise in Rolling Rhyme - World Rhyme - Echo Rhyme
Being a story told by his mother
of one man's life
lived all over the world
The story of his passion for life
As far as I am aware, this is a completely original rhyme scheme
14.3.96.

L I V I N G I N T H E W O R L D

In this photograph - aged three
he clutched his father's hand
Mandatory safety He and I
trying what this earth could offer
hurling into life before the world moved on
Content to travel in this baby's company

He looks doubtful as a sparrow chick Couldn't tell
well or ill what lay ahead
Meadows in the Hindu Kush
Bushman didgeridoo
booming over sacred places in Australian night
lighting his mind to open incredulous
lusting novelty to take the world as his

Disappearing here to taste
wastelands where his every brother -
germane ego to his own - wandered
Curdling cries from bands of shooting strangers
curses which he found a gentle way around
Clowned - a child with other children Saw -
drawn always to the foreign - what influence
ensuing culture interest could deepen
-
When we took him overland
standing on his father's knee
seeing stars and distances across the top
hopping over the roof of the world he
ceded doubt for entertaining happiness
guessed about each coming marvel -
elevated - ravelling just beyond the dawn
Drawn chattering to each new friend
Ending every dusty travelled day content

Spent his evenings wide-smiling
Lingua franca in the company of large
barging Mongol men who - soft enough
offered food and ponies Raptors' wings
Things to stroke The leather hooded birds bells tinkling gently
fearless heard his laughter through the hood
Good ponies sturdy-legged and bit-less galloped him along the plains

Trains puffed along the track we crossed
Tossed steam and smoke into the air
Careful Russians and Chinese descending
bringing packages of home and trade
Made a photograph upon Mongolian Steppe
Wept as their long departed relatives were found
Bound by family ties and love
shoved gifts of food and vodka roughly into their hand
Planned to stay until the spring
bringing warmth and tracks to follow
Lodestars worn by centuries of feet

Heat rising with the purple smoke in darkened
ends of houses overflowing with the smell of food and sweat
Debt discounted as a gift to friends who share the winter
Fur-clad stumpy round upholstered children
sent playing in the Gobi snow
Rolling my child - and other children - snowballs down the dune
Soon to separate forever moving on

One by one the camels and the ponies loaded up
Pups and cooking pots and women trekking to the springtime wood
Stood waving - tiny figure - Helped me pack

Backs of camels often were his swaying home
Roaming saddle-cushioned in the upper air
Bearing loyalties and messages from camp-low to camp-high
Eyes growing wider filled by mountain peak
Speaking dialects companions taught
Brought us laughing through
Drew amused attention with his blond
fondness for ferocious trails - exciting frights
Heights of happiness he gathered
bird hopping over years of danger


Working in camel lines - no stranger - high in Kazakhstan
Cantered months along Mongolian trail
tail streaming after mane
Reins of willing ponies jingling
Mingling with gaudy gold
old as distant family bride
Pride of generations roaming
Lingering - home to yurted home along the seasons
Sons - theirs and mine - sturdy reasons to continue Shamen
venues Obo offerings to the many Gods Yurt cities
fizzing into Nadam fairs of camel racing
Singing songs and telling stories
Feasting to enthral an English child
wild from years of gypsy custom

Coming back along the Silk Road
loaded down with memories and one last falcon

Wandering exhausted into Kabul
Mullahs leading faithful Moslems in prayer
Blaring muezzin echo-voices from minarets high above the town
drowning out the roar of bearded turbanned Pathans
dancing weaving ponies Shooting frontier weapons
Guns overwhelming in Afghan culture
Burdens lightly carried

-

Speed and iciness on the flight
right into Kashmir
searing light bouncing off the Dal Lake

-

Taking him along the mountain track to school
Cool early morning air
Wearing his uniform Wisdom
domesticated into verbs and bunsen burners Tempered by his laughter
Surrendering pony-warmth to houseboat fire Settled
lulled by books and theories
Easing into the `Garden of Eden'
Bending willows tight around the wanderlust
Dust shaken from his father's camera

-
Rattling of Chinese fire inside Ladakh
crackled closer in the mountain night
Lightening and thunder roared
Hoarding money Selling up we waited
Dead and wounded brought by
Winding round the stony tracks
packs and wide-eyed children
Men tottering with age and weariness
Resting women grieving losses on the air
Baring breasts deprived of milk to comfort babies
with their softness and their smell
Shelling growing closer Carrying along the mountain air
Where would it end?
-
Friends were fleeing daily
We travelled south across the mountains to Amritsar
car giving way to rickshaw at the Golden Dome
Home in a side-alley near the centre
Girls - tiny creatures in bright saris - shared the house
Mouse-giggled at my blond haired son
plunging into languages they knew
Queuing shyly in the shade to call his name
Claiming his foreign company until
still as sighing breath
death hovered over him when cholera
passing round over-crowded houses - fly-infested food
crude water channels
wells stagnating in the drought - seeped in

-

Fingers picking screwed wet sheets he
seethed in misery Vomiting water
Terrible stomach pains fidgeting his rolling eyes
Miserly with sleep we waited generous with fear Watching him
simply fading to a shadow Seeing him smile one morning

Lingering to make him stronger
murderous unrest swept round the city
Breathing strength to will him well
Fellow roamers - also weak - helped us further south to Rajasthan

-

Bands of surging sweat-sapping malaria attacked his father Fear
searing his nightmares
Flares of hopelessness destroyed my wanderlust as he lay ill
Silver tongues of desperation whispered
Kurdish neighbours gave their time - and camel meat they culled
Dulled senses blearing kept him in the clinic
Clicking tongue urging ponies he had ridden
Sending them along remembered mountains

-

Trains lurching in the dusty heat
Neat gardens in Jaipur Pink palaces and school
Rules and uniforms again - and rest for us
Russian friends caught up Sharing house and school Nikolas their son
won prizes for his English Three years on
none of us remained They flew to Taiwan

Landing in Goa we worked passage
bridging the sea to Male
Lazing the Maldive Islands lucratively into tourist guides
Slides of paradise and flight routes - island hotels and history

-

Leaving on a sloop - Pacific-bound
Found a life-boat - empty - floating in the Java Trench
Drenching monsoons in Teluk Betung tucked within Sumatra
Cracking coconut communication Hunger-fishing steaming off the beach
Preacher singing hymns along the shallows
Nose glowing like a sunset
Yet determined to convert us
Suspending fishing we barbecued the catch
matching fish to hymn Preacher to fish Fried
-
Gliding south to Borneo and Sulawesi through the Java Sea
Fiji Islands steaming in the heat
Neat palm trees neater people curly haired and smiling
Bringing coconut to share Swopping stories of their own for his
Visiting the yacht he helped to crew around the islands
Hands lifting his father gently - before we left for home

Home to this strong son was everywhere
Sharing laughter his new friends travelled in to Nadi
Delivered us Inspected the runway carefully and waved us off

Offering tales later - so he wrote - of fishing star-led along the ocean
Tuna longer than their island - wider than their longest arm
Charming smiles when gullibility was judged as run
Spun tale collapsing giant men giggling on the sand

-

Landing first in Vanuatu
lured northward - making for New Guinea
He remained swimming lazily in Solomon lagoons
Tunes of love he heard in Roviana
Abandoning the sailing he stayed on Settling..perhaps for ever?

Certain in his letters home - I have them still - that Mairee
Returning home to her and the little one - and paradise - would stop his urge to wander
Burdened by the need to meet horizons Scents on heated air adrift
Shifting surf against the Barrier Reef Sand along the desert plains

Trains flooded from the track he heard across Australian trail
Failure to settle with his Malaitan Mairee
remain with their brown-skinned blond-haired baby
Hearing echoes across the Coral Sea
teasing him towards the desert
Hurting He was trapped in Roviana Mairee sent him on
Considered freedom was his happiness
Nestled one last time into his chest
'Best you should go No! Go! You can come back We'll be alright'
Sight of tiny family waving from the grassy runway

-

gave way to Aboriginal acceptance Drawing stories in the sand
Bands of foreigners they said violating sacred tribal ground
Round the camps still a steady welcome hunkering
Ringing and reverberating sounds he heard in desert nights
Lights of lizard eyes he hunted My child - a man - again become a child
Wilder and more knowledgable Learning to survive
Thriving in the desert No wilderness to him
Chimneys made of colonies of honeymaker
Termite pantries
Trees silver-naked whistling in air
Careful studying of tribal art
Partnered
Herds of kangaroo lurking in gum-shadow
Roaming dingoes howling silences
testing how the night would bend
endless distances - caught his imagination

-

Hunting round a Darwin bookshop flames of need
seeded in fertile red soil
boiling furnaces to travel into closed-up China
Gathering work and film he flew to Kashmir

-

Gearing up and joining in with wanderers
Curs and camels Cooking pots and languages
His drifting through Kashgar along Xinjiang
Jangling falcon bells and Uygurs wandered out of Turkey
Feeding Arabic and Islam ribbon-stranded through the mountain
Bane of China

Passing near the border north of Tarim Basin
Clinging sickly to their camels
Bells on harnesses reminding them to travel
Quelling sickness in this eerie empty corner
Working their tired way to Urumqi
Reaching it to learn of radiation
Plundering of nuclear tests
Chests heaving in air Snatching breath they rested

Dead animals Wasted children He joined another group
Looping through Mongolia along the Gobi trail
Ailing then strengthening to tenderness
Breasts and gentle arms his pillow
Growing fonder of his tender-strong Klaran - closer - until they separated
said their long goodbyes Her trade went north to Ulanhot

-

Slotting into other trails he travelled to Duolin
single figure high upon the camelway
Nation after nation teaching him

-

Swimming in the summertime near Xanadu
Blue pools where Marco Polo marvelled
held in thrall by gilded palaces
nestling inside high walls Long swept away by history
Reclaimed..but haunted by the memory
Dynasties of Khan from Genghis - conqueror -
roaring subjugation over northern China - to Kublai
milder far than he - who built Beijing

English child Descendent of dynasties of Khan
Man roaming city alleyways He wrote of seeing cats and dogs to eat
Meat - like snakes and lizards - squirming in a wicker basket
Petting finches on the train towards Guangzhou
Growling bears and monkeys whipped and dancing bloody on the pavement
Went to buy the ticket south along the flooded Pearl
Whirling statue slow along its banks with ancient women
Men waving arms in misty morning air
Sharing exercise and supple age

-

Beijing a memory on reaching Portuguese Macau
Boundary pearl droplet in the China Sea
Li-length dependent European Chinese
easing sailing west through monsoons and piracy
Seasons fishing Floating in the Gulf of Siam
Clamour slowing to a distant sound along the surf
Perfect pulsing stars invading wide-spread eyes
Prize of working in their cooling glow in nights awake

-

Making for the northern capital of Kota Bahru
Jewelled Sultanate in new Malaysia less important than
landing catches at the circle market where fruit
suitably displayed on brilliant cloths within the smell of spice
rice and meat - rats and fish - found
drowned in brilliance as women dressed
blessed by all their gold and finery of colour
murmured prices they would ask for fruit or salad
Glad to sit and barter in the circle
Duller jewels - their teeth gleaming in the shaded heat

-

Treat of reading his adventures Meeting yachtsmen by the sea Moving on
Gone as crew before the morning waned
Gained flying fish and dolphins Sizzling - an arrow on the water
-
Burning eyes in days becalmed Bailing ocean
Cunning circling sharks repelled
melding life with life lost overboard
Hoarding desperate morning dew
Beauty of hallucination

funny palm trees shimmer..
merging slowly with reality and rescue

-

Newly saved in Sabah Weak beneath the cooling palms
Psalms echoed from the hutted church
perched upon a hill behind the beach
Reaching hands brought softer comfort
Taught patience for a month - a year
Clearing nightmares Lida's soothing-soft demands
hands belonging on his body - forward lips teasing his reward

-

Boarding a yacht one morning tide -
riding high along the water - he was gone
Wandered to the Philippines Searching perfect pearl along the reef
Chief amongst his finds produced the perfect price
Rice to fund his travel
(Duller men than he would buy a house)

-

Thousands went to women he still missed
Distances did not destroy the trust they gave
Favouring the wait for his return
Burning candles in their corners
Nursing memories they shared equally

-

He turned up next - thin and brown - to see his father one last time at home
Roaming in one afternoon
sooner than expected

Said he planned a special trip
Slipping over to the Teardrop
Stopping off at last to see
people we had always spoken of
Hovering presences about his infancy
He collected their addresses and the gifts we sent
Went to find Sri Lanka
paddle in its white sand bays

-

Days spent where he was born at Mount Lavinia
Grasping his inheritance
Dancing where his father danced with me
Re-connecting with the friends we'd made
Fading photographs were flourished
Fished from teakwood boxes laid with ivory and brass
Cascading memories he detailed mailed in letters home

Roaming friend to friend around Colombo
Going here to work and recommended there
where friends of friends had work to give
Trivial excuses made to celebrate his coming
Singing songs we used to sing - The same guitar
far away by thirty years

-

Before his birth
girth big enough to block the door
poring over maps I chose Kandy in the cooling hills to keep him well
Seldom fevered then he thrived beside the lake
Breaking our journey we lived three years there
Sharing a bungalow with Mrs Mannawattee beneath the mango
Holding our son as we held hers Bestowing a kiss

This became the place where he next stayed
Laid his pack above the ghost of ours beside the lake
Taking the train to tea plantations up in Kandy
he met the laughing Station Master dressed -
best peaked hat and English manners Stopped a night or two
Blue flowers by the door and in a jug

Chugging some way further up the cooling hill
filled with sun umbrellas Bright
white and brilliant jewel saris on the track
Clacking loosened rails beneath the slowly moving train
Canes prodding elephants to stand aside
Tides of saris swaying left or right as it passed through
Newly forming wake as it moved stately up the hill
Spilling butterflies at every halt beside the dusty track

-

Back to England when his father died

Cried Carried memory and ashes on to Burma
Mantra murmuring in gentle Buddhist shrines
Lines and crowds in saffron yellow
Lowering floral tributes to a wisdom
come beneath the Bo tree (Simple thread
Spread along the Eastern World
Curled around the West) Then on

-

Gone to meet an Eskimo
..snowbound settlements where slow
snow foxes gather - congregating round a bin
Gin traps set to snap unwary leg
Begging eye-terror Snarling teeth accepting death-release
Peace as sleds behind a husky team
stream across the silent white
Biting frozen meat with frozen teeth
Lethal winter snows all year

-

Cheering work on fishing vessels tacking south
Mouths of basking sharks yaw
Mornings sailing to delight
nightly in the Land of Fire
Choirs of penguins nun-like shuffle feet
teetering with hatching egg
Legs on long flamingos statue still
drilling into pools in Chile Beaks dredging mud
Shuddering at alligator snout
Shouting out to warn..
Dawning age recognition that life
life is just as good for them


Stems of tiny sweet bananas
cascading in the jungle shade
Trade with people older than the Western Dawn
Fawn babies in the Amazon..widened eyes and smiles
Miles on river highways - dugout paddling to find the town
Crowns of feathers decorating wrinkled brows
Boughs in forest clearings lined with songbird
Words of music falling in a nectar slide
Brides collecting wedding riches for their tribe
Scribes writing in calligraphy

-

He saw them all and stayed a while
filing feature photographs across the sea
being in his living happy

-

He never married but at least three women count it good
could he have stayed - good that he came

Claim he had of three strong sons who
truly bear his slate-blue eyes - his ready smile
Islands in the east they hop
The little one from Sabah the first from Roviana
Casting their nets in widened arc The middle one
Mongolian - testing camel trails near Ondarhaan
can show them where their father stayed
Jade upon a mother's arm as proof he cared
shared his passion for the world with her
murmured promises he kept - when he remembered
Herds of camel were this son's inheritance
Fancy harness jingling at his birth

-

Worth and vision keep these grandsons writing
English is their second - father - tongue
Songs they sing are all about the world
Curling from their corners need
feeding from their father's blood
Good enough to give them all the right
Lightening the lives they carry

-

He died here in Cumbria at forty-six
Tricks of eager memory about his lips
..ships sailing into soft lagoons
Tunes of Hindustani melody returning
lingering fair as firefly summer lights
Nights of stars unending in surprise
Eyes quickening to learn the road ahead
Dead - but travelling along the ways he went
Meant always like the dust to travel on
Gone to join Forever - and his kin
In this photograph - aged three -
he clutched his father's hand

14Mar1996 CPR