Borobudur

By Jennifer MacKenzie

At the time of the construction of Borobudur in the ninth century, Buddhism had been established in Java for several centuries. Mackenzie’s Borobudur, an exquisite long poem, tells the story of its legendary architect, Gunavarman, and of Indonesia’s mystical monument with cultural understanding, sensitivity and great feeling. Like Gunavarman by the poem’s end, Mackenzie becomes ‘a dot on the horizon’ leaving us stilled in silence. ‘Like turning a wonderfully textured and beautifully glazed vessel around and around, the chronology of Jennifer Mackenzie's Borobudur, is progressed while eluding linearity. Her legend of Gunavarman, Javanese Buddhism's almost mythical priest-architect, reminds one of Hesse's Siddhartha with the parallel reality she creates for the book's protagonists. Borobudur is a memorable invention, utterly present as it succours both history and imagination. The poem's tropical atmospheres and correspondingly spiced language, the sumptuous detail and layers of story, girdle the poem as it, in its marvellous stead, encircles the monument which time almost forgot.’ Kris Hemensley

• Language: English
• Publisher: DoctorZed Publishing
• Release date: Aug 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781921924156

Jennifer MacKenzie

Jennifer MacKenzie vit en Ontario où elle a fait ses études en sciences de la nutrition. Elle est l’auteure de nombreux livres de cuisine et elle publie régulièrement dans les magazines, dont Canadian Living, en tant que spécialiste en économie domestique.

Book preview

Kukai

LAMENTATION FOR MY BELOVED STUDENT, THE RONG’GENG

She was raucous in the early days

my brother, Kanwa, was holding in his compound some

celebration for our father she was a gate-crasher but her

wit transformed indignation into merriment

Kanwa’s dancers, whom he was training to move like puppet

butterflies

stepped aside to allow her garrulous cadences full scope

the butt of her wit was an old man who shuffled along behind

her

he carried her belongings on a stick

how merry were Kanwa’s guests

how abject was this poor buffoon

consort of my brother for a few short months he looking

at his reflection in the clear water of the river Elo

to avail himself of a particle of her presence the kain

she had left bundled on the couch now a screen

fixed to the rafters of his private pavilion

the champaka flower abundant on green-netted silk and she

the raining of pale gold in the mirror

as a dancer she did not glide but kicked

as if she were performing sanghyang djaran a smattering of

learning

consolidated itself in the bamboo shelter

that was the beginnings of my school

she argued dogma with the ferocity of a natural

and he blamed me for her literacy

her voice was the forest itself

its density was the late afternoon

its tangled undergrowth and yellow flowers brilliant as stars

verandahs reflecting this turpitude

found lightning to be their demon brother

the ricochet of her voice could be no elision

the bitter dust of his writing pencil

he took to wandering himself nailing poems to the rafters

of resting houses these poems implored that their words

would find her, that she may in her wandering, rest

at this or that sea coast or secluded forest, that she may look

into

his words as into a mirror and gaze upon her own beauty

radiant as the asoka flower, supple as its boughs

she looks into the mirror of his words

curl of her lip the sky overcast beyond and the sea

low down from the pavilion

wooden rafters rattle in a strong wind

the words blow about her among the rafters’ flowering vines

lyrics scattered like grain

the tempest blusters her kain still silk

merchant town to the north

beloved of the richest man there

when she sang mangosteen was served

dancing became a private ceremony

twins born in pale moonlight

begging at shrines

twins dead from fever, cold

a breast as black and withered

as an old pandanus leaf

which once carried a message of love

she sang in the lowest of dens

she dressed in a red smock garlanded with snow blossoms

the men settled about her

compassion fell into place on her face, the most difficult

of puzzles

she came to see me at the building site

my brother did not appear

we read the Buddhacarita together

we debated when the liberation of wandering plunged into

the extinction of craft

she was the one to present me with new sandals

after some weeks she left for the mountains

when resident there I asked farmers news of her

yes, they said, rags and a voice as pure as the sound

of your singing bowl, Gunavarman

         at the last rainy season

rain pouring over the verandah posts of her penultimate hut

her eyes sheltering beneath a thatch of