Driving From Takhli

Late in the afternoon, driving due east

from Takhli up to Tak Fa the world for

a moment has become an Art Deco school

book cover.  The full moon, a serene pearl

color, rises in a valley of thinning titanium-

white thunder clouds while the sky, lit

by a low western sun, is the bright blue

of a restored Renaissance painting.  A dim

half-rainbow arches left and down from

a cloud to gorgeous green rice fields while

Takhli’s three-story Golden Buddha sitting

near the top of a steep hill is dead-center

in my rear-view mirror.  I feel I am hanging

at the balance point of all things.

At Bo’s house, I watch a one month old

puppy.  He is too fat to run and can only

make it about six feet on the broken

concrete slab before he plops down on his

belly.  He looks up at a full grown dog who

looks down at him at a steep angle.

Their wet noses almost touch.  In the world

of smell that dogs inhabit, I wonder if

information isn’t being exchanged here.

I look up at the Thais around me.  It’s

a warm night and two or three people

seem to be talking at the same time.

I can’t follow their talk but they make

no effort to include me.  I look back down

at the pup.  “Don’t tell the humans anything,”

might be what the big dog is saying.

At dusk, we drive back from Takhli to

Chong Khae following the die-straight

Lopburi Canal.  It’s dark enough for

parking lights but not for headlights.

My wife points left across the dark

water to a hard-scrabble hill the Thais

call a mountain.  A thin black line,

like smoke driven by the wind, emerges

and remains unbroken all the way to us.

Sometimes the line doodles this way

and that but it remains unbroken.

Half mile farther on, the line swoops

over the top of our car like a jumbo jet

landing on acres and acres of rice fields

to our right. Konchow (bats) my wife says. 

Millions of them, I say.

FG  October 2, 2015