Photos of your world. You stand in a snow-covered forest, with a stillness not found in my summer. In those photos, the kiss of time moves slower, for the kiss of time moves faster in the heat of summer. I find myself longing for the winter, yet I need the summer; without summer, there is no winter; without spring, there is no autumn. Without the kiss of time, there would be no time for us. Our impermanence would be permanence. Our beauty and wonder would never be so lovely. Our hearts would beat something other than blood, as we grow colder every hundred years or so.
The words of Rumi take shape and play a scene with sounds as I sit thinking of the desert, exotic lands, and being another person in another land with another life.
In a far off land different from my own, I am alone, and I walk within your nation, yet I walk apart. The half-hidden faces and the glances show me that I do not belong here.
I have never worn so much cloth around my head, had so much material cover my body, and I have never felt unseen; yet the heat and the clothing cool my skin, and I feel free of fear.
Arabic on the wind and the vision of a mosque so beautiful you know the artists and architects loved their god, yet I’m a hypocrite for I do not believe in anything anymore.
Safely wrapped, a kind man ushered me towards the tea house to have something to drink. The smell of mint, rose water, and orange blossoms put my mind in a philosophical mood.
Surrounded by noise, I feel calm as I cannot understand a word, yet I know I don’t belong here; I am not part of this country. I am a hypocrite hiding behind a cloth I don’t believe I should wear.
Yet, I cannot bring myself to admit that the pull of this place feels like a longing that I have felt since I tried to play that broken instrument that looked like a Qanum many, many years ago.
I sit in the tea house surrounded, yet alone with my thoughts. Then I hear the bombing begin. It is a shock: a booming calamity and a whooshing sound mixed with many other sounds. It is a shock to my ears and my heart, for we do not know of this life in Australia.
Blood mixed with dust, concrete and debris strewn across the streets, bodies broken and mangled, and there, so close to me, the kindly man who ushered me in: bloody and dead. In those cloudy eyes, I once saw courage.
I walk from the tea house to stand and look towards the sky. You have gone from me through some cruel twist of fate, yet I know we will find each other again one day.
I feel like an important person in that instant. It is as if my feelings are the only feelings I can feel exist. Individualism has taught me to think my feelings might change the rivers of time.
The next bomb destroys my daydream, the images and the sounds of Rumi end, and I am sitting at my desk reading about your country: saddened by so many dead.
I wrote this one yesterday. We have experienced Winter in Spring. It’s lovely, as the rain is everywhere at the moment, yet the thought of Summer makes me wish for more rain and cold weather.
A rain cloud kind of wild day Petrichor blew away by the wind
The wild rain calling outside Placing my empty porcelain cup
The inside smells cannot win Walking outside to feel the wild rain
I want to run; you want me to walk. I want to feel it all; you want me to feel you. I want to love like a song; you want me to love only one. I want you to let me fly; you want me to fly only with you. I wanted you to see; you wanted me to see it was me holding myself back.
Mr No Name sits in his usual spot beside Adelaide Rose Davies. Tonight is quiet, dark, and it smells of half-dead roses from so many fresh graves. A man who used to have a name is now known as Mr No Name. A man not even worthy of having a first name. This evening he thinks about the smell of the half-dead roses on the breeze and what he lost. Tired, he lays his head down to sleep with his only friends, the dead in the cemetery. Homeless and alone, this is the only place he finds peace and quiet to sleep and dream of his painful memories. His memories of a loving wife, two loving daughters, a house full of light, and the day she walked away because he lost his business to a cruel recession. He dreams about his daughters in colour. Any money he has he spends on his mobile phone to see their faces from time to time. Sometimes, when he is lucky, he sees his wife holding the arm of that famous person. He sees her, and he falls in love every time. Laying there, he writes a message to both of his daughters on Messenger. Perhaps they will see it, or they won’t. He writes a forgiveness message of kindness and love to the mother of his children. There are no pillows anymore, no kisses from his girls, and no feelings of warmth and happiness to mend his broken heart. He rests his head on Adelaide’s grave, then asks a question he never thought he would ask, “Adelaide, can I please come down there with you? I always feel calm beside you.” The cemetery remains serene as the night moves along; there is no snoring anymore, for the broken heart stopped beating at 3:15 am. Ten minutes after his girls and the love of his life deleted his messages.
C & K 