The Arts of Peace

words fail me this week. there are fragments of a story swirling in my head, but i don't seem able to make the effort to get it on paper, to weave the words, to transform this swirl into a narrative. instead i check the news too often, go to bed too late, brush to-do-lists out of sight, and paint little coloured squares on paper with child's wax sticks that were hiding in a drawer.

what's the point, anyway, i scribbled on a white page of paper this morning. some other pages of paper answered some hours later, through a book sent to me from across the ocean. Selected Subversions, it is named. Essays on the World at Large. one of the essays is titled "The Arts of Peace." here are some lines of it:

My work and the world: I was asked by somebody back at the time of the invasion of Iraq how we could all just go on writing or funny little stories, especially we fantasists, and I said that in my opinion what we were doing was practicing the arts of peace. What we want is a world in which funny fantastical stories are possible and are valued. In which there is nothing so dreadful or urgent that it causes the writing of such things to stop or be stopped. Worlds where the arts of peace can't be practiced are wounded worlds, and that's why we have to go on practicing those arts, so that our worlds don't die.
- John Crowley, Practicing the Arts of Peace

those lines, i read them to a painter friend this afternoon, who bought a ticket to Jordan three weeks ago, to visit this place she hasn't been to yet, to be in the desert once more. "i can't read the newspaper," she said to me. then she told me how a friend who happens to be architect visited her yesterday, had looked at a tiny sky painting she did last month, and had said to her: "will you do more of those?"

(the link to the Selected Subversions, here: Conjunctions)

this week in Lebanon

This link is a travelblog from Niam, a filmmaker from Lebanon who went home for her sisters' graduation these past two weeks. Very moving and personal account.



(note that I'm no longer posting as Windy)

A spec of time on planet Earth.

So many people, each a different soul,
more than a billion, out there.
In this fleeting moment, I wonder
How many have what I do?
As I lie here close to you, and I shut
my eyes, I smell you oozing out of your
pores. Through which you sweat to feed
and clothe me and those I have borne.

As if I were a watchful eye, cast in the clouds,
This tiny little spec of time, I see the sun rising
on an Oriental rice field, upon a woman with her child
tied to her back, who tends the ground and hums
to whom she has borne.

I find a woman on a camel on a scorching land,
wrapped up like a secret gift in her Arabian
clothes, she sways with the camel. Eyes cast on
a mirage or a horizon, led by a string tied to
the nose of the camel by the man,
she glances at him for a split moment as he
conquers this desert to which he is borne.

My eye in the clouds, it sees the thristy
huge fertile mass where rain seldom comes
and many a clan is wiped out of hunger.
I see a small girl with streaks of tears
on her smooth skin, because as of now,
just at this very moment, she is orphaned,
and now none exists to whom she was borne.

So many people out there, so many souls,
how many sleep in peace, to be sure of peace,
and how many are at the peril of the works
of leaders, unkind, with not a moment to think
of them; the many who will smell the blood
as it spills of those with whom they were borne?

Tasnim Jivaji
July 22, 2006

earthsky

inspired by the spec of time
on planet Earth

& the blue clouds
on the filing cabinets
behind the wooden door
that leads inward and outward.
.

A visit

Once every week I walk to a wooden door. I usually softly knock if it isn’t open, and a blue eyed, blonde haired woman opens it and invites me in. I take a seat on some cushy blue chairs and she sits on the other side of the low table with a box of tissues, right near the lace curtained windows. Across from us both is two sets of filing cabinets, both painted with blue clouds swirling over them. All over the walls are posters with phone numbers and internet addresses on them.
She smiles as she straightens her skirt, pushes her fluffy blonde hair, with its hints of grey re-growth, off her pale skinned face, and then says, “How are you?”
Pleasantries are lost in this room. I never reply, ‘Fine thank you,’ as politeness dictates. Normally I look at the blue clouded filing cabinets and reply, ‘Sad’ or ‘Alive’ or ‘Numb’.
She gives me a soft look, with big eyes that ask me to continue, but I wait for a question.
Sometimes a smirk creeps onto my face, only because while I’m what she describes as ‘seriously depressed’, I can see there is something funny and ironic in this place, in this procedure.
Then she asks about my week.

within

Makeshift we are
Our two senses

Random neural firing
Light upon light

Within / Without
Of day thought time

On a lighter note:
Can you draw eternity
refreshingly?

~

written 2005,
just refound in a file

The Butterfly Returns

Across shores,
Flying miles of thoughts
Re-emerging through words
Was the missing butterfly.
Strung across barbed wires.
Life against death.

In Mamallapuram.

And toasting the butterfly's return,
Sat an old dragonfly,
Murmuring comfort across the sea.
That life triumphs over death.

In Mamallapuram.
.

Following Time

And so I stood by the windows of my mind,
Watching sunsets of evenings lost,
Wondering where the sky meets heaven,
And life meets Time for the journey's last step.

(follows the butterflies below)

butterfly

yesterday they were here
visiting the pink flowers
now it's rain
the garden still
like an aquarel painting

while i stand there
wondering behind the window
where the butterflies fly
to wait for the end
of the rain

(smile. follows the missing butterflies below.)

but mostly

I miss you
I miss my ability to compose poetry
I miss time
I miss words
I miss autonomy
I miss the sky
I miss the rain
I miss River
I miss the total freedom of childhood,
being indebted to no one and nothing
I miss standing on the hilltop with the wind
in my face
I miss butterflies
I miss horses
I miss the rolling wheat fields
I miss the pebbles on the lakeshore
I miss the silence of the north
but mostly
I just miss you

automatic answer

morning question
but lo, the absurd do have not bark, but bite
amid inhaled illusions
unlit light throughout your night, so very white

onthology dharma
your heart will always know
what would Buddha do
that swallowing chameleon makes you blue

(smile. couldn't resist when i came across this poetry generator page. so i entered the 'morning question' as a first line, and pressed the 'groove' button. then repeated it with "onthology dharma", and added the Buddha line. out come these answers. dig on this, the page commented.)

Ontology Dharma: Answers to Questions

morning question

could a raindrop
choose where to fall?