Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Meeting at an Airport

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos
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)


Thursday, July 26, 2012

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.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

for the love of blue

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

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Alyz Tale

Son histoire Those gestures made for her in red.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

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

Monday, July 9, 2012

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

Friday, July 6, 2012

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!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012