second impressions, Bali

One day there was a cremation; the streets clogged with celebrants. I watched them building this tower all week in the main intersection, to race down the street with, shouts and clanging-- Death as celebratory occasion.


There is always some suggestion behind each wall, each glance, each gate.








There is a temple here with a holy spring. The water bubbling up-- blue, sparkling gray sand, within the ancient rock pool-- maybe have been the most sublime thing I've ever seen; no exaggeration. It looked like life itself; it was life itself, revealing itself so simply--

You bathe there, clothed in sarongs, everyone together in another pool, with several spouts gushing water from the stone walls. The spouts are laden with offering baskets, fragipani & incense & crackers piled high; you step into a cool pool of petals, holy debris floating on the surface, orange koi swimming below-- and you wait in line to wash from each spout, going down the line and dunking your head in the waters, becoming purified. Old women, young men with tattoos, babies carried by their father, shivering people unaccustomed to cold, becoming pure together--



Already I miss waking to the sounds of cocks crowing, of people sweeping the ground with branches lashed together.