Wayne Amtzis is a photographer and writer from New York. He studied at Syracuse University and UC Berkeley before completing a Masters in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Wayne has lived and worked in Asia since 1976 and his writing has been published internationally and in Nepali translation. He has written, edited and translated several titles including Sandcastle City/Quicksand Nation, Days in the Life, Two Sisters and Flatline Witness. He lives in Kathmandu, where he teaches meditation under the guidance of Tsoknyi Rinpoche.
URNS
As he molds wet clay into water jugs
the potter spins a tire
levered into a sunken mound
at his doorstep. Beside him, his wife,
her hands weathered, purposeful,
shapes spouts, lips and handles.
Urns as wide round as a woman with child
stand in a circle radiating
out from the crouched, intent couple.
From among these, their offspring,
you choose an orphan with delicate neck.
And I another, ample and full bodied,
for storing water we will haul
from the village well. That first morning in the farmhouse
below Kopan monastery, spider-necklaces
slung across the path glistened,
draping us in a moist scented light.
The urn we set in a dark corner, ¾ full,
with a clay pot of yogurt
or a jug of fresh milk cooling within.
The orphan we later carried,
each in turn, in the crook of our arms,
along the paddy ridges,
through and around bamboo groves
back to the city. The all seeing
clear blue eyes of the Boudhanath stupa
taking us in on that moonlit
parting night
1976
WHERE PATHS CROSS
Between glint of sun and stiff-banked shadow
women quarry and haul stone. Busted rocks slung in a basket,
heads bent forward, bare feet muddied by the path,
the last and least stooped
stops to beg from those off the bus at road’s end.
While the late-risen moon
sets in the west, unheeded, she follows her sisters
porting stone and baskets of wood
to the towns below. As the trail snakes lower
shedding its moods – at a mountain quarry
trees worshipped with blood;
in fields all around paddy hangs heavy with gold;
all along the way, footsteps steadfast and sure,
bamboo sways in the wind.
On the valley floor, behind a medieval town
where fields die for a cash crop of bricks
and gray towers spew smoke,
barefoot bare-chested younger brother
bears with heavy bar two bright-lipped brass urns,
well water so deep we hear each full-fathomed gasp.
Down the valley-rim road, blinding in its reach,
a deluxe bus slides by.
Those who rose to catch the sun over Everest
return from what cannot be seen
to pass what can. Back-bent men move in unison.
Wooden mallets break open the earth.
1978
RITE OF WAY
Up from Durga’s Mandir,
past pigs scratching themselves on stone-faced idols,
Kathmandu rises out of a dying river.
Apartments overlook temples fallen prey to pigeons and rats.
Where footpaths and alleys stumble and sprawl,
at the foot of the full-bellied elephant god, Ganesh,
a supplicant lies submerged,
breathing mantra through a shroud of sand.
Afloat, on the raft of his ribs,
a flurry of butter-lamps rise and fall to a harmonium’s
wind-sprung song. Beyond the derelict Kastamandap temple
at the city center crossroads, a trio of flute, drum and voice
celebrate an unearthing. Nudging by,
a battered old Chevy veers into the crater
where a dug-up idol lies exposed.
Pedestrians push past, oblivious to the rite interrupted
and the one taking place. Above the chasm, a tire spins,
but the feted god lies unmoved.
Confused and wary,
the out-of-place traveler leans on his horn.
1981
NOT YET THIRTEEN
Slung over shoulders, wooden signboards
shout ROMANOV VODKA. Sporting Romanov Vodka T-shirts
five young men file and weave through Kathmandu’s moving throng
A youth in jeans stops mid-street to watch them pass
Notched on his imitation leather belt
the letters: T, E, X, A, S announce a destination and life
he’s keen to pursue. Straight ahead
against a wall, a pock-faced boy
kneels on the sidewalk, last in a long row of men
squatting on makeshift stools ready to polish shoes
In the stale shadows of a government building
where people line up to pay bills or make inquiries,
two young girls coil against a gate
selling cigarettes to those waiting inside
and to those passing. The oldest,
not yet thirteen, the other, maybe nine
As they lean on each other,
the youngest laughs when the Romanov Vodka boys pass
Not-yet-thirteen has forgotten how to smile
Her eyes downcast
Hidden like the darkest of moons.
1993
AT FIRST TREMOR
The slender white tower no longer dominates the square
Noodle & beer-spangled signs swim above buildings
ready to collapse at first tremor.
Anchored by rocks, headlines trip us up
Relying on rumor, steadied and assured, we pass
unscathed through the course
set on the path – of piled clothes & towels
– of men shining shoes. Where roads slightly askew
slow down the flow of man and beast,
a market meanders. In shifting sunlight,
propped up by hand & shoulder
torn shirts, bare feet, each as poor as the other,
men and boys wait for work
Trrp trrm trrp trrm A stove sputters
Its fumes laced into a murky pool of tea & milk Hissstrrmm
hissstrrrm Nuggets collide in a roiling sea of oil
Like punctured tires, crisp misshapen hoops of dough
pile up. No one is buying Hissstrrmm trrp trrm...
Along a traceless path, farther in,
a sunken square shaded by a Bodhi tree
Smooth stone beneath bare feet.
Where bathers lean, a stone-dragon spumes
Beyond, and below civilized spur,
mud hovels rise from the garbage-banked river
claiming this city as theirs. In dust-clogged knots of sunlight,
where a man roasts peanuts,
and another dips wool into a vat of dye
a woman combs long black flowing hair
Washed & oiled, wet & free. Below,
where river once flowed, in a sea of refuse, pigs sleep
Shifting on one foot, arms apace,
a man spits out words he knows will wake them.
In that same riverbed,
midst an indifferent audience of buffaloes & pigs,
a circle of men closes in. With women among them,
a circle of men listen and rise
1995
SAND CASTLE CITY/ QUICKSAND NATION
(“on the banks of the river, naked children are building houses of sand” Sarubhakta)
Dank cries, interrupted prayer,
even the self-arisen stupa, Swayamhbu, in the Form of Light,
sinks in on itself, though resplendent,
ashamed. In the rank Kathmandu dawn
as the city-in-play aspires,
a nation-on-hold conspires. Aspire. Conspire.
How the currents cross!
Where hollow spires rise from makeshift foundations,
sandcastle banners lure all comers. Get in! Get out!
before quickening sands gulp you down.
Let storied sandman dollars float you away
– to the promised land, to the glorious Gulf, go.
Or better yet, grab a khukuri-pass to London
or a lottery ticket to ride to Queens and beyond.
From rock-scrabbled trails, with far-flung stride
to a subway straddled walk-up,
like a hawk from locked-down boarded-up villages,
glide. Then California dreaming
bide your time, safe and far from gut-wrenching tides
that turn here every day.
Sandcastle dreamer, quicksand schemer,
take a farewell glance all around
at what’s been done, not done, undone –
the gone paddy, the multi-tiered warrens are no mirage.
The city’s swamped in garbage, its rivers, crawls of stench.
As the tide sweeps out, Swayamhbu, its gilded light
cloaked in eye-stinging haze, sinks in on itself...
In incensed dawn, at every corner,
smoke coils from tires burning
and night after day, the coming age,
in the Form of Might
readies itself, fierce and unyielding,
as its devotees gather, torches in hand.
2005
NIGHT CLOSES IN
Night closes in with its breath taking grip
Night that walks in the guise of day
Light footed across the rubble morning comes
as if rising from the dead. That which came and came again
leveled a world. In that sudden tolling,
what great works were interrupted?
The beating of a heart A heart! Nine thousand hearts!
The mirrors that temper vanity lie shattered,
and multiply. See how they run
– to pixel the pain – to instant message grief
Hands set to the unremitting tasks ahead
are deeply stitched with glass, with shards of light.
For 2 days I was healthy, in touch with the earth.
All it takes to make me whole, I realized
as I turned in place: is a 7.8 shot and a 6.7 chaser.
Now the earth stills and I’m left spinning,
a partner without a dance. Eyes no longer widen
with a survivor’s camaraderie and a tale in the offering
But shrink with hurt mourning the lost.
A hawk still glides. My gaze cannot pretend:
The city below, rubbled all around
is not the same. The town below is not the same
The villages below are not. And will never be.
That which came and came again
leveled a world. That which leveled a world
leveled our souls. “My village is dead”
“My village...
No light rises from the rubble.
2015
THE CLOUD SPAWNED SEA
Clogged and rift-threaded through cracked-heeled earth,
trespassed trails run to sky, to cloud spawned sea.
Knuckled under, no gods remain
embedded in the ruptured creviced Himals
In the disinherited valley below
no drunk-dragged chariot can haul them back.
All heave... thrust keened, muscle vented
to reach through prayer shouldered molder and rot
to the heaven hived core, voices
rose on city-wide wings. Two days into the 12 year cycle,
the red god’s chariot1 stands stymied,
a footnote to the gloom, inauspicious: history’s tell. The Bungamati temple: a pile of rubble.
Like a match lit in a sunken cave
this day’s quake-spied dawn
swallows its fire. The valley, a star sapphire
set in busted stone
Slipped in haste from a finger of its stunned devotees.
2015
THE STOMACH SUFFERS FROM LACK
The stomach suffers immensely
It suffers from lack. The spine bent and hobbled with hurt,
the spine that held up the stairs
and resisted the shifting walls, the spine
carries us forward, stiffened, but not broken
The hands, palms dark and swollen,
knuckles split, fretted with blood
broke our fall and drag us still from the rubble
The soles of the feet with so many years
ground into it. And the heels
that steady us, ridged like the bark of a tree,
Soles and heels, with the legs tireless
and drained, that sprang us free, rock us now
here where we crouch. Head in our hands,
lips broken like the earth beneath the stream
that long ago fled, and the teeth,
so few, gapped like houses that stood along the ridge,
jailors, holding back the cry
that overtakes us: the heart suffers from loss,
it suffers severely. The tongue, furtive,
caked with the stench of its own saliva, wanting
to... wanting to speak, and the eyes,
those darlings of life, weary from never closing,
the eyes link and sustain us
as we look to each other, and without turning
away, as we look within, lifting us,
lifting us...
2015
CITY ON HIS BACK
Nepal’s the one
who barefoot bent and weary
waits, who barely moves,
but leans he must,
against the weight, against the road.
Nepal’s the one
who at your beck and call
heaves the city on his back,
who swallows sweat, breathes fumes,
whose breath’s gone,
who puts off death by drawing from the end
in days, in pennies gained,
who asks why one man crouches
and one man sprawls,
why one man hauls the city on his back,
and another rides, that city rising all around.
Nepal’s the one against the wall,
whose blood’s thin, whose chest caves in,
who being who he is, can’t go on...
Goes on
2015
1 Rato Machendranath. Every 12 years the rain god is carried in his chariot from Bungamati to Lalitpur
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