Sabi is the color of the poem. It does not necessarily refer to the poem that describes a lonely scene. If a man goes to war wearing stout armor or to a party dressed up in gay clothes, and if this man happens to be an old man, there is something lonely about…
Literature
Fiji
One must first of all concentrate one's thoughts on an object. Once one's mind achieves a state of concentration and the space between oneself and the object has disappeared, the essential nature of the object can be perceived. Then express it immediately. If one ponders it, it will vanish from the mind (Basho 1644-1694) …
Thin strip of lace, foam
Rain all day. This was Fiji. Drops splashing into the sea, splash! The malachite undulating hills dark against the impossible turquoise of the sea. A ferrous blue skirted a thin strip of lace, foam and waves climbed unto the beige beach. A thunderstorm that was forever childhood excitement: a knife sharp, mercury-white glare…
Borges and I
In ‘Borges and I’ Borges (1899-1986) confronted the deep problems of the self, who we ultimately are, what persists of us when we die, and what our relationship is with the world and with our inner self. He said It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live,…
Trees stand their ground
Trees stand their ground whatever the weather. Overladen with snow. Chilled to the sap, the pith frozen and aching, trees do not withdraw their roots, fold them and then move to a different clime. They stand. Is this what duty is to trees? Pumping out oxygen so that we breathe it in and…
Vegas and over-extension of the flank
We arrived at Las Vegas after a journey that took in Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon, Panglitch & Zion. Zion was a different kind of place from Monument Valley or Bryce Canyon. The river, Virgin, was only at the start of its task to cut into the sandstone, gouging a canyon of the stature of…
Road to Axum
We set off for the Central Highlands, aiming first for Gondar, then the Simien Mountains en route to Axum where the Queen of Sheba is thought to be buried. We stopped to walk through a market and were back 2000 years; donkeys, mules, blacksmiths, grain, herbs and spices, women inspecting a baking tray and then…
We live in paradise
I never thought that here in Addis, at a church, with the faithful kneeling and bobbing their heads, this week before Easter, I would come to see my relatives, my grandmother and her sisters, some of my cousins, even my own children, in the tone of skin, the slightness of frame, hook of nose.…
Late Summer in Sussex
Late August 2009 we returned from Glyndebourne, travelling via Virginia Woolf's home, Monk's House Rodmell Sussex. We had seen a revival of Handel's Giulio Cesare and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. We stopped for picnic lunch at a field not far from Monk's House and could see in the late summer light the River Ouse. Entering…
Language of health care
I have to say that my interest in words is elemental. I study words, enjoy them, and gaze at them as one would a sculpture. Indeed for me, a word is a sculpture. Imagine the word ‘obfuscate’, the ‘fus’ in it has all the attraction for me, of carrion for ravens, it is a basic…
MindReadings 