Amor Fati ( Nietzsche)

It is not a place of peace

A tent of shade or a palace

Lotus flowers do not float there

In ponds silent or lost

I have not chosen

Nor was I chosen to be

Chance, perhaps, or coincidence

Have found me searching for me

It is not because of love

That I have loved those I once met

On serpentine roads or in cities of stone

It is because I just was there

One gets one chance

Given by chance

To pass through

And be curious about the passing

... It is not a place of peace

Nor a tent or a palace

But it is fate

Dressed as life

August 24, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

One Hand isn’t Enough to Write With (Abdellatif Laâbi)

But to invite

It still takes one

To touch another hand

Under an unmoon night

Or in the heat of the desert

To reach for the clouds

It takes the most beautiful

Of all births:

That of an idea

To hold

In the palm

Of that
One hand

To reach inside the caverns of

Oneself

It takes one hand, made into a fist

To hold the sternum

Before all pain

Is shared

Yes, it still takes one hand

To wave goodbye

At a train station

… And, it takes that same hand

To keep waving till the train becomes night

And

To come down

To your face

And hold the tears

For the next train

The next star

And the next invite

August 10, 2017

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

I borrowed the title of my poem from Abdellatif Laâbi, a Moroccan poet. His original poem was written in French entitled “Une seule main ne suffit pas pour écrire”

I took the above photograph in Morocco.