Barry Hill

As you casually entered the gompa —travel weary, a meagre warmth in you too much mist in the lungs— the winter sun hit the sutras. The mountain light, having raised the black frost shafted the night wind south raided the …

You land with gold over the Red Centre still in your head. The road taking you home to the sea is a lizard flattened in the heat. The light does the talking, the light splinters all over the place. Who …

A solid pack around his grave. Good steel to a magnet, the sky leaden with the warmth, somehow, of common ground. I did not know them all but the bulk of them knew me. Their leader told them of his …

The face of the loved one the only face the face which speaks to mine. One leaf curls to the other they fold, in and out To each other’s autumn breeze. Her perspiration, the brow that she wipes her labours …

You might have just glimpsed the way to write this book: Start with Thich Nhat Hahn’s recollection of Ben Tre the city he knew from which a few shots were fired at American planes that came back to wipe out …