Harvest the fog

As of sundown yesterday, Muslims began the 30-day celebration of Ramadan. During this month, they fast between dawn and dusk, reflect on their spiritual life, pray and join together for pre-dawn and evening meals. The evening meal, iftar, on the final night is a proper blow-out, as you might imagine.

Ramadan actually moves according to the lunar calendar, which means that some years the daily fast (no food and no water) is more than 12 hours. That’s tough, but I imagine that it can help to focus the reflection.

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month is by Kazim Ali, a writer and professor of literature and creative writing at UC San Diego.

“Ramadan”

You wanted to be so hungry, you would break into branches,
and have to choose between the starving month’s

nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-third evenings.
The liturgy begins to echo itself and why does it matter?

If the ground-water is too scarce one can stretch nets
into the air and harvest the fog.

Hunger opens you to illiteracy,
thirst makes clear the starving pattern,

the thick night is so quiet, the spinning spider pauses,
the angel stops whispering for a moment—

The secret night could already be over,
you will have to listen very carefully—

You are never going to know which night’s mouth is sacredly reciting
and which night’s recitation is secretly mere wind—

 

 

The charm of spring

Hokey smokes—it’s April! And you know what that means, don’t you?

Yes, indeedy—30 days, 30 poems. Because National Poetry Month.

Since it’s also a Friday, I’m thinking we’ll kick it off with Ella and Louis performing the 1932 song, “April in Paris”. It’s about as far away from the war in Ukraine, Republican douchebaggery and the general shite swirling around us as you can get.

Other times; another place.

 

 

Not off course

I mentioned yesterday that I sometimes walk on a local golf course, and that it’s one of the very few places left in the People’s Republic where you have open space.

This is especially important at those moments where we’re transitioning from night to morning. Viz:

I have to say that—given the whackdoodle world we’re living in—having access to this is a huge comfort to me.

 

 

 

These boots are made for mucking

You’ve heard the expression “boots on the ground”, right?

Well, here’s what boots off the ground look like when they're driving around town:

Gratitude Monday: the scout

Here’s the first tulip of 2022, doing its best to blaze the way for hundreds and thousands to come.

It’s the harbinger of seasons of azaleas, rhododendrons, iris, daylilies, lilies, peonies, water lilies, sacred lotus and hydrangeas.

How could I not be grateful for this little guy?

 

 

Don't be frightened

As we’re rounding the corner on four million refugees from the war in Ukraine—with another seven million people displaced (including nearly 100,000 forcibly transported to Russia by the invading forces), I’m thinking about the childhood experience. Damn, but we’ll be paying for Putin’s little adventure for generations.

Ukrainian mothers are escaping the war with nothing but their children—frightened, bewildered, uprooted. Mothers in the receiving countries are leaving strollers, baby buggies, toys, clothing and supplies for the refugees at entry points and train stations. The cost of war is not measured in blood and treasure alone; plush toys and prams left on a station platform mark a different price.

Today’s music is therefore a lullaby. I don’t know any Ukrainian ones; this is from Wales, “Suo Gân”, which features prominently in Stephen Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. The 1987 film tells the story of an English boy caught in the devastation of the Japanese invasion of China; separated from his parents, he spends four years in a POW camp. I wish a much shorter sentence for the millions of displaced Ukrainian children and their families.

Translated, the song goes:

Sleep my darling, on my bosom,
Harm will never come to you;
Mother's arms enfold you safely,
Mother's heart is ever true.
As you sleep there's naught to scare you,
Naught to wake you from your rest;
Close those eyelids, little angel,
Sleep upon your mother's breast.

Sleep, my darling, night is falling
Rest in slumber sound and deep;
I would know why you are smiling,
Smiling sweetly as you sleep!
Do you see the angels smiling
As they see your rosy rest,
So that you must smile an answer
As you slumber on my breast?

Don't be frightened, it's a leaflet
Tapping, tapping on the door;
Don't be frightened, 'twas a wavelet
Sighing, sighing on the shore.
Slumber, slumber, naught can hurt you,
Nothing bring you harm or fright;
Slumber, darling, smiling sweetly
At those angels robed in white

Here’s a Welsh boy soprano singing it:

You know what? This is for more than the Ukrainian children and mothers. It's for the Russian children who've lost their fathers (in their thousands over the course of a single month), and for the Russian children who are lost in Ukraine and wondering if they'll ever see their mothers again, and for the Russian mothers who will never hold their children to their breasts. 

All because of Putin's dream of being crowned Tsar Vladimir III.

Chacun à son goût

I very often share my dinner with the critters who live outside. By which I mean that if I have too much, I’ll put the excess out on the patio.

When I’ve ordered takeout, occasionally I get something that I just don’t care for. That goes outside, too.

This happened last week when I got chickpeas with my kabob dinner. I’m not wild about chickpeas. These weren’t bad, but I already had enough salad, lamb, chicken and rice for more than two meals, so I put the garbanzos on the patio.

Well, evidently no one in the ecosystem likes them either, because they stayed there for five days and nights before I finally dumped them in the trash.

My people!

 

 

There's always something

The other day when I was enjoying the Spring blossoms, wouldn’t you know there was a worm in the fruit. Metaphorically speaking.

I’ll grant you, this one was cute. But only because he didn’t happen to be—at that exact moment—gobbling up my bird seed.

Still a little toerag, tho.

 

Books

On one of my recent walks, I noticed that one house had a big delivery:

Someone’s a big reader.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: beautiful explosions

Yesterday was the vernal equinox—the Sun crossed the Equator in its journey north; in the Northern Hemisphere, that means that day and night were of equal length, and we’re headed to longer days and shorter nights until summer solstice.

Meaning: we are at meteorological Spring.

This past week I noticed an explosion of blooming and greening—some flowers, but mostly trees. I imagine a lot of nocturnal whispering, giggling and passing of notes, culminating at first sun rays with “Ta-daaaaaaaaaaa!”

We got crocus, daffodils, forsythia and the first wave of flowering trees.

So guess what I’m grateful for today?