This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.
We meet our guide, Rom, after lunch at the hotel
He too has the Fren(ch) English pronunciations
so it takes a few hours to understand clearly
it is hot, very hot
after our long drive
surrounded by peasant life
and jungle foliage
we are inside a journey
the temples emerge from the jungle
all the more grand for being in some degree of ruin
Rom says, “Root quake and plunder.”
In many places the roots have won and
the enormous stones give way to the persistently, silently growing
mass of tree life
built with rocks from quarries far distant
brought in by elephants and put in place
with pulleys and ropes and
masses of men
laborers and stone carvers
Hindu temples in the 8th century
modified to Buddhist temples in the 12th century
four directions, four walkways, each for specific persons
the highway for the kings–the grandest
the kings retinue
the common people
the generals and soldiers
In Indonesia, my friend Hermia handed me a book:
“You’re going to Cambodia, here take this one,”
The Gentleman in the Parlour by Somerset Maugham–
about his 1920s trip through Southeast Asia
I immerse myself in the book and through Maugham’s eyes
I can feel the place from an earlier time before thousands of tourists
when the jungle had truly taken it over
To quote Maugham from page 136
“If indeed you are curious to know what this stupendous monument looked like before the restorer set to work upon it…., you can get a very good impression by taking a narrow path through the forest when you will come presently upon a huge grey gateway covered with lichen and moss….Entering you find yourself in a vast courtyard strewn with fragments of trees, towering above you, shrubs of all kinds and dank weeds; they grow among the crumbling masonry, forcing it apart, and their roots writhe like snakes upon the surfaces of the stony soil. The courtyard is surrounded by ruined corridors and you climb hazardously up steep, slippery and broken stairs, threading your way through passages and vaulted chambers dripping with wet and heavy with the stink of bats….Here and there great pieces of carved stone hang perilously. Here and there on a bas-relief still miraculously in place stand the dancing-girls veiled with lichen, mockingly, in their everlasting gestures of abandonment.”
In 2012, the grand arched entrance is made even more grand
by elephants carrying tourists across the moat
monkeys, thought to be the souls of monks come back to guard the temples,
make the place their home and are not shy
even when carrying their tiny black-furred babies
For me, the visual images here are inscribed
with heat, sweat, and the physical effort of clambering
through doorways, over fallen rock,
through courtyards, into dark alleys
now, I come upon this one carving,
this one lovely woman in formal design
carved in this very corner
100s of years ago by an ordinary laborer.
through a tunnel my view opens
to an enormously tall tree
its roots like a giant’s fingers
holding an entire wall in its hand
endless and intricate bas-reliefs
“Here you have princes on elephants with the state umbrellas open over their heads making a progress among graceful trees; they form a pleasing pattern which is repeated along the length of a wall like the pattern of a paper. There you have long lines of soldiers marching into battle, and the gestures of their arms and the movements of their legs follow the same formal design as that of the dancers in a Cambodian dance. But they join battle and break into frenzied movement; even the dying and the dead are contorted into violent attitudes. Above them the chieftains advance on their elephants and in their chariots, brandishing swords and lances. And you get a feeling of unbridled action, of the turmoil and stress of battle, a breathlessness….only the chariot wheels rest the eye in the chaos.” Maugham, p. 140
In the center of the great 5 towered mass
are very steep steps up to the top level
Ren’s knees are a bit tenuous
so Reatrey, Ren, Rom, and I
hold hands and help him up
counting aloud each step … 6, 7….
we get there…32…together
The view out to the jungle in three directions
and the vast courtyard and pool in the fourth direction
is potent with triumph
of both nature and human skill and ingenuity
at a turn in the tower
in a nook built into the walls
I’m astonished to see
a consummately peaceful reclining Buddha
the orange scarf wrapped around him
is magically lit by a ray of sun at just this one moment in the day
he radiates golden light almost too bright to bear
he is immersed in incense and prayers
and worshippers on their knees
there are many more Buddhas
some left alone, some sitting, some standing
some draped in orange and attended by incense
one of the seven wonders of the world
centuries of heinous war, killing, and death
millions of suffering enslaved laborers
gave their lives to make a place for the Buddha
who wanted tranquility and equanimity.
In the remains of this costly ancient pillaged temple
lies a Buddha in eternal peaceful repose
visited by thousands of respectful and peaceful people
from multitudes of cultures speaking multitudes of languages
at days end we emerge from the temple complex
to walk the grand passageway of the kings
as wide as a highway
built of 1000s of great light stone blocks
surrounded by a vast moat
reflecting the five towers
in the softer colors that evening brings
and, ahhhhh, there, right there is the rising full moon!!
the amount of attention and creativity involved
in communicating with Rom and Chan and Reatrey
has created a magical feeling of cross-cultural intimacy
Ren has been calling Reatrey our granddaughter
and she sweetly uses a fan
to cool off “grandma”
Rom has one last thing to show us
in a remote corner of the last gate
“the only smiling figure”
We meet our guide, Rom, after lunch at the hotel
He too has the Fren(ch) English pronunciations
so it takes a few hours to understand clearly
it is hot, very hot
after our long drive
surrounded by peasant life
and jungle foliage
we are inside a journey
the temples emerge from the jungle
all the more grand for being in some degree of ruin
Rom says, “Root quake and plunder.”
In many places the roots have won and
the enormous stones give way to the persistently, silently growing
mass of tree life
built with rocks from quarries far distant
brought in by elephants and put in place
with pulleys and ropes and
masses of men
laborers and stone carvers
Hindu temples in the 8th century
modified to Buddhist temples in the 12th century
four directions, four walkways, each for specific persons
the highway for the kings–the grandest
the kings retinue
the common people
the generals and soldiers
In Indonesia, my friend Hermia handed me a book:
“You’re going to Cambodia, here take this one,”
The Gentleman in the Parlour by Somerset Maugham–
about his 1920s trip through Southeast Asia
I immerse myself in the book and through Maugham’s eyes
I can feel the place from an earlier time before thousands of tourists
when the jungle had truly taken it over
To quote Maugham from page 136
“If indeed you are curious to know what this stupendous monument looked like before the restorer set to work upon it…., you can get a very good impression by taking a narrow path through the forest when you will come presently upon a huge grey gateway covered with lichen and moss….Entering you find yourself in a vast courtyard strewn with fragments of trees, towering above you, shrubs of all kinds and dank weeds; they grow among the crumbling masonry, forcing it apart, and their roots writhe like snakes upon the surfaces of the stony soil. The courtyard is surrounded by ruined corridors and you climb hazardously up steep, slippery and broken stairs, threading your way through passages and vaulted chambers dripping with wet and heavy with the stink of bats….Here and there great pieces of carved stone hang perilously. Here and there on a bas-relief still miraculously in place stand the dancing-girls veiled with lichen, mockingly, in their everlasting gestures of abandonment.”
In 2012, the grand arched entrance is made even more grand
by elephants carrying tourists across the moat
monkeys, thought to be the souls of monks come back to guard the temples,
make the place their home and are not shy
even when carrying their tiny black-furred babies
For me, the visual images here are inscribed
with heat, sweat, and the physical effort of clambering
through doorways, over fallen rock,
through courtyards, into dark alleys
now, I come upon this one carving,
this one lovely woman in formal design
carved in this very corner
100s of years ago by an ordinary laborer.
through a tunnel my view opens
to an enormously tall tree
its roots like a giant’s fingers
holding an entire wall in its hand
endless and intricate bas-reliefs
“Here you have princes on elephants with the state umbrellas open over their heads making a progress among graceful trees; they form a pleasing pattern which is repeated along the length of a wall like the pattern of a paper. There you have long lines of soldiers marching into battle, and the gestures of their arms and the movements of their legs follow the same formal design as that of the dancers in a Cambodian dance. But they join battle and break into frenzied movement; even the dying and the dead are contorted into violent attitudes. Above them the chieftains advance on their elephants and in their chariots, brandishing swords and lances. And you get a feeling of unbridled action, of the turmoil and stress of battle, a breathlessness….only the chariot wheels rest the eye in the chaos.” Maugham, p. 140
In the center of the great 5 towered mass
are very steep steps up to the top level
Ren’s knees are a bit tenuous
so Reatrey, Ren, Rom, and I
hold hands and help him up
counting aloud each step … 6, 7….
we get there…32…together
The view out to the jungle in three directions
and the vast courtyard and pool in the fourth direction
is potent with triumph
of both nature and human skill and ingenuity
at a turn in the tower
in a nook built into the walls
I’m astonished to see
a consummately peaceful reclining Buddha
the orange scarf wrapped around him
is magically lit by a ray of sun at just this one moment in the day
he radiates golden light almost too bright to bear
he is immersed in incense and prayers
and worshippers on their knees
there are many more Buddhas
some left alone, some sitting, some standing
some draped in orange and attended by incense
one of the seven wonders of the world
centuries of heinous war, killing, and death
millions of suffering enslaved laborers
gave their lives to make a place for the Buddha
who wanted tranquility and equanimity.
In the remains of this costly ancient pillaged temple
lies a Buddha in eternal peaceful repose
visited by thousands of respectful and peaceful people
from multitudes of cultures speaking multitudes of languages
at days end we emerge from the temple complex
to walk the grand passageway of the kings
as wide as a highway
built of 1000s of great light stone blocks
surrounded by a vast moat
reflecting the five towers
in the softer colors that evening brings
and, ahhhhh, there, right there is the rising full moon!!
the amount of attention and creativity involved
in communicating with Rom and Chan and Reatrey
has created a magical feeling of cross-cultural intimacy
Ren has been calling Reatrey our granddaughter
and she sweetly uses a fan
to cool off “grandma”
Rom has one last thing to show us
in a remote corner of the last gate
“the only smiling figure”
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