August 23, 2006

Cats in the Gobi~~

There was the time
I hitchhiked across the Gobi
Desert of Inner and Outer Mongolia back
in the day when Fr. Teilhard
was residing in the Jesuit house
in Peking and spending afternoons
sipping tea with the sculptress Lucille Swan
in her garden alcove in the city.
This was before the discovery of dinosaur
eggs in China and the Badlands
of Patagonia, but long after
the great Emperor Qin buried
the terra-cotta warriors.

There were no cars in the Gobi
and very few people. Hitchhiking
was a very slow and lonely task.
I spent two days in one spot with my thumb
bent backwards and outstretched…waiting
in the desert cold.
There were camel trains formed
of the nearly wild Bactrians with their
humps of fat. That’s when I got my first camel
ride from a nomad from Karakorum trading
in Chinese silk. There are few or maybe no
lions in the Gobi, but the most beautiful
cat of all, the snow leopard of the Himalayas
with its magnificent tail, visits often.