Temperatures in the high 30's, an oxygen blue sky above us, the creek cloudy brown like a flask of leftover iced tea in the refrigerator, the trees gray, tall and still, silently waiting while the frogs sing to them about the coming spring. I find a small bleached white skull by the trail, either a possum or a raccoon. Maybe a skunk. I can't tell as the teeth are gone now as well as what I think should be the mandible. A raccoon has 40 teeth. A possum has 50 teeth. A skunk as 34. A cat has 30 teeth.
I collect seed pods from a vine, like Christmas ornaments with a candle stamen inside. I would think they are a milkweed, but they are on a vine, not a stalk. They are shaped like Thai dancers with their elbows out, palms touching over their heads. I have rubbings of these dancers from the walls of Thai temples.
We left India and stopped in Bangkok, ate mangos for breakfast and rode on a boat on the Chao Phraya
river. The war in Viet Nam was still raging close by. It was 1966.
In Japan, we lived in Shinjuku, and then moved near the International University where next door there was an orphanage with beautiful Eurasian and Afroasian toddlers waiting for adoption. They came from Viet Nam, the children of American soldiers who went home without them. Or who had died.
The announcement today that the skull unearthed in the Greyfriars area of Leicestershire, England was indeed that of Richard III, complete with a full set of teeth, a spine showing the famous curvature and skull showing head injury indicating the cause of his death in battle. DNA from 17th generation descendants of his sister confirmed. He was born in 1485.
Human beings have 32 teeth (including wisdom teeth).
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