Lunatics Dream 2 - Poetry

Dreams of Rice

Rice

Fluffy, white,

Or sticky grain

ancient and new

in eternal dance with

the bowl,

the pot,

the cauldron.

Now and then

fertility

abundance

luck

hope

offering to gods

promise for a future

Fluffy, white,

Or sticky grain

So ancient, so new.



Interesting facts FROM: http://www.khandro.net/nature_plants_rice.htm   

"Long long ago, there was no Moon and no Sun. And there were no people. The World was quiet and dark, and nothing lived here. There was only darkness, confusion, and fear.Then one day, a man crawled out of a mountainside. His name was Luj Tub (Lou Tou). Out of the crack with him, he brought Paj Hnub Hli [Pai Nu Li?] the Sun Flower.

"Ntxhi Chiv! Come out! Come out!" he called. And Ntxhi Chiv (Xee Chi) his wife, came out, too.

Now, because of the silence and darkness, Lou Tou was confused and frightened and so was Xee Chi. For days and days, Lou Tou and Xee Chi huddled together subsisting only on the seeds of the Sun Flower that they had brought out with them. . . . . . . .     "Lou Tou, I think I'm pregnant," Xee Chi said one day.

Lou Tou replied happily, "Oh! That's wonderful." He paused for a moment. "It will be great to have a baby with us for there are no people that we know of here besides ourselves."Then one day Xee Chi said, "Our seeds will not last us forever. In fact, they are almost gone. We need to plant them." 

"You're right, Xee Chi. Tomorrow I will take some of the seeds out to the field," Lou Tou responded. And the next day, he did just that. When he had finished, he went back to his wife and they waited for the seeds to grow.

Soon the seeds sprouted into marvelous plants. They looked like corn plants, but their roots were potatoes. In between was the corn, but at the very top was rice.  Rice in Everyday Speech

In Bangladesh, China and Thailand, instead of "How are you?" they say, "Have you eaten your rice today?" Also in China, people do not say, "Happy New Year!" but "May your rice never burn!"

In Taiwan, death may be symbolized by a pair of chopsticks stuck in a mound of rice.

In traditional Japan, people do not think in terms of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, rice means meal. They say: morning rice (asa gohan), afternoon rice (hiru gohan), and evening rice (ban gohan).

Did you know that Toyota means bountiful rice field and Honda means main rice field ?

In Singapore, a steady job is "an iron rice bowl", so being out of a job is, "a broken rice bowl".

In Laos and Thailand, the phrase eating rice is synonymous with eating food. That is food = rice. "