paint palette world

so much seen from a bicycle

riding roads south of Chiang Mai

by the flooding Mae Ping

every place has a spirit house

each home and store and plot of land

tucked near the road

the gleaming new, the tumbledown:

white-washed, stone, or peeling-paint-ed;

golden-hued, flower-strewn,

full of little statue-people

demi-gods & warriors;

elephants & chariots

incense, candy: offerings

in a corner energy hovers, shimmering, but

on the roads bright life holds sway:

deep black Greater Coucal

with rich russet back

Red-whiskered Bulbul with tangerine coverts

Mynahs, Mynahs everywhere

they are the starlings of Thailand

mostly Common but so many

species we might see

Crested, Jungle, Hill, White-vented,

Javan, Collared, Golden-crested;

black splashed bright with

orange and white.

Doves... Before I left home

riding up the west side highway along the Hudson

alone atop a double-decker bus

melting in the sun

drying in the breeze

going dead-head from Battery to Times Square

a flash across the road

a belly: cream, tinged tawny rose

tilted in flight to show

the warm, soft, mouse-fur grey-brown back

moist purple-chocolate spots

rounded form but slender slight; delicate, elegant,

diagnose a Mourning Dove

Here are many doves. One similar to our Mourning

but all exaggerated: smaller and more streamlined,

more spots becoming mottle-stripes:

the Oriental Turtle-Dove.

Seen on roads & bushes & overhead wires & oddly

in cages, cooing at cousins

who walk oblivious down the road

a Cinnamon Bittern rises from the paddy;

settles slowly in the trees

butterflies abound

pale cold-butter-yellow ones small as a thumbnail

stay close to the ground--less turbulence

among the low-growing flowers perhaps

tiger-colored swallowtails weave a drunken course through trees

deep purple velvet pair--a hand's-breadth each--

dance a complex minuet in the road

another of conventional size, black & pale-lavender-white

hangs upside down, rotating slowly,

perfectly splayed as if pinned

in a Victorian curio, from a spider's well-placed

invisible web.

dragonflies, some the size of hummingbirds (or perhaps not quite)

in varying tones of earth and light

from deep rich scarlet

of just-spilled blood to warm rust brown to

surprising incandescent chartreuse

follow down the road, confounding the sense of distance and of size:

perspective

Certain, quite certain, I saw the stripy belly of a cuckoo

so many species of cuckoo so common so many

places I've been & sought them

and heard them, but never a sure

sighting to tick off on the life-list. Passed

a sign for skystone storm forest home

a legend, myth, fairy-tale place right here

who lives there?

a Drongo, I think, with three long tail-

feather shafts; a squarish pendant on the

shorter, center one. Certain of what I saw,

but it's not in the book. So much for certainty.

Never ever rely upon your certainty.

Bright new temples; every entrance flanked by twinned

Nagas, the chaos-serpent-guardians;

some garish to my eye (accustomed to the gloomy romance of old

gothic stone) fresh white paint

mirrored tiles in clear, blue, green, red

gilded dragons overhead on eaves and balustrades

tinkling bells hang from corners of broad

roofs but there are delicate carved-wood doors &

one's extensive muraled walls

tells stories: the devouring giant,

emerald green; the saving giant bird, rose-gold,

driving down the sky with gods on its back and

who, by vanquishing, saves.

the temples accommodate, encompass,

what comes before and around them

the spirit houses are not Buddhist but the temples

have them and

sometimes the spirit houses

have spirit houses