Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Monday, May 28, 2007

Gnome Waves Good-bye.

Outside the silk shop, a leg-less young man on a wheeled platform played a gourd flute. His music drew me. I stood at a short distance from him, listening, not making eye contact, before walking closer to him, then sat down on the steps near him. Then I looked into his eyes, and he into mine. His eyes looked handsome and pretty, almond-shaped and almond-colored, striking for their beauty. His fingers busily played his flute. He occasionally looked up at me, then away, back at the ground. His tone changed after I sat near him and watched him; his music became softer, emotional, affectionate, perhaps even loving, like a musician melancholic for his lover. He saw me smile, and then changed his tune again to a jolly tempo. Suddenly he stopped playing, pointed to my vehicle, and spoke to me in Mandarin, his voice high-pitched. I can only assume he said to me: “Your car is here.” I gave him ten Yuan, and then left him. As we pulled away from the curb, I looked out the window. He looked up at me from his platform and waved. I waved back and wept.

Beijing, May 2007.
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Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.