Qinghai

Altitude is not a joke. Things look and feel different up here.

Monday, July 22

This is where the day started:

And this is where it’s ending, 300 miles away:

Denver wants to be notorious for its altitude, being exactly a mile above sea level. This morning, I arrived via overnight train to Xining (my first time in Qinghai province), which sits at 7,500 feet above the sea, more than 2,000 feet higher than Denver.

And then we drove to Maduo (Madoi), up 6,000 more feet, ascending in one day more than the total elevation of Denver.

They say at 8,000 feet, the human body is at risk for altitude sickness. I’m currently resting at 13,800 feet above sea level.

That explains the light-headedness, shortness of breath, purple lips.

Nonetheless, a poem:

~

Qinghai

Blue-green sea, it’s called.
Blue for the sky, green for the fields
where sheep look like white-capped mushrooms
from afar. Can’t help but get the sense
we’re trespassing, like the monkey king
up in the heavens, that we’re not supposed to spy
the Tibetan fox with its rectangular snout,
the tiny skirting dwarf hamster, those yaks.
Perhaps better if we didn’t — if we left
more to the storybooks and, better yet,
the imagination.
We’re city people, after all, acclimated
to sea level, not two and a half miles
closer to that answer so many pray to know.
Five-colored flags whip their blessings
into the wind like pollen.
At this height, what else might feel different?
Grief and desire, ego and breath?