Lillian Bassman

Meeting at an Airport

BY TAHA MUHAMMAD ALI

You asked me once,

on our way back

from the midmorning

trip to the spring:

“What do you hate,

and who do you love?”

And I answered,

from behind the eyelashes

of my surprise,

my blood rushing

like the shadow

cast by a cloud of starlings:

“I hate departure . . .

I love the spring

and the path to the spring,

and I worship the middle

hours of morning.”

And you laughed . . .

and the almond tree blossomed

and the thicket grew loud with nightingales.

. . . A question

now four decades old:

I salute that question’s answer;

and an answer

as old as your departure;

I salute that answer’s question . . .

And today,

it’s preposterous,

here we are at a friendly airport

by the slimmest of chances,

and we meet.

Ah, Lord!

we meet.

And here you are

asking—again,

it’s absolutely preposterous—

I recognized you

but you didn’t recognize me.

“Is it you?!”

But you wouldn’t believe it.

And suddenly

you burst out and asked:

“If you’re really you,

What do you hate

and who do you love?!”

And I answered—

my blood

fleeing the hall,

rushing in me

like the shadow

cast by a cloud of starlings:

“I hate departure,

and I love the spring,

and the path to the spring,

and I worship the middle

hours of morning.”

And you wept,

and flowers bowed their heads,

and doves in the silk of their sorrow stumbled.

Taha Muhammah Ali, “Meeting at an Airport” from So What. Copyright © 2006 by Taha Muhammah Ali. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.


Source: So What (Copper Canyon Press, 2006)

from the deep end of the ocean

they can cut and shred your body till that person in the mirror is someone you no longer recognize.

it's that light inside,
that light that draws us in,

they can never touch that,
it belongs to you and it's where true beauty lives really.

for the love of blue

*chantal* via Flickr I was just thinking, all you can do really is embrace the ones that love you.

Alyz Tale

Those gestures made for her in red.

the genius of a swan

The Good Father

by Sally Mann

1990

courtesy of  L E N S C R A T C H

...

the stain

a poem

A Prayer for Rain

BY LISEL MUELLER

Let it come down: these thicknesses of air

have long enough walled love away from love;

stillness has hardened until words despair

of their high leaps and kisses shut themselves

back into wishing. Crippled lovers lie

against a weather which holds out on them,

waiting, awaiting some shrill sign, some cry,

some screaming cat that smells a sacrifice

and spells them thunder. Start the mumbling lips,

syllable by monotonous syllable,

that wash away the sullen griefs of love

and drown out knowledge of an ancient war—

o, ill-willed dark, give with the sound of rain,

let love be brought to ignorance again.

Winter In My Heart

From a nameless observer,

to an artist and his muse,

May you find your way soon.

After all they say, "true love prevails," 

your side of the moon.

Karina & Godard

another

If I Were Another

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier—

that’s what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another!

born on the 4th of July

jim and chris's "potato chip"