ZenSouçis: August 2019

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Stony Walls

It was just a drop

But I drowned in it

The moment got lost

In the whisper of fear

And the drop filled

All spaces

There was no morning

After a night of wonder

Coffee was bitter, butter had

Melted

And dogs started barking

In loneliness

It was just a drop

That covered my page

In words I had forgotten

In passion that once was

Love

And made my pen bleed

In dark ink and colour

There was no morning

After I wrote that page

In sounds cities make

When all sleep in pain

In sounds the fall mist gives

To the top of tall

Trees

And then

I drank the coffee

Scratched my belly

And wore my heavy boots

To go out

And feed

The

Dogs

August 25, 2019

Friday, August 23, 2019

Got an email from a reader who did not sign the message as most of the comments I get. Indeed, in my August 10 posting about national awakening through poetry, I had typed the Estonian national prose awakening document incorrectly – it should be Kalevipoeg (Kalievipoek in Estonian meaning Kalev’s Son) and not Klavipoeg as I had written.

I have made the correction, with thanks. And, as I was typing somehow I wondered why would someone find the word Umbrella funny, or suggest reading Jonathan Livingston’s Seagull…

August 23, 2019

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Chromesthesia

Red is not of anger

But a sound to abide

While you feel the labour pain

Of the woman on the fifth floor

Near the summer-dry creek

Yellow is for squirrel bark

When high noon is all sun

All flame, without the sound

Of any shade

A broken violin in the trash bin

And the road is again all green

Each cord curled as alphabet

And a lunar calendar of days

There are shoes near the pool

Which have walked the dusty trails

Where elegance lost its colour

To a spectrum

In melody

August 20, 2019

Note: I wrote these lines influenced by a painting by Wassily Kandinsky titled “Yellow, Red and Blue”

Monday, August 19, 2019

They Left Without Fanfare

Grateful

I let in

On an unmoon night

The shadow of a wall

I had learned before

That the uninvited

Bring presents

I had received before

Grateful

I let them in

Sitting upon a crumbling wall

To hear about ancient seas and gulls

Eloquence

Is a narrow path

Where the truth is lost

In the travel dust

But I stayed there

To hear the wings

Of dark crows

Cut the morning light

And I let in

Grateful and without fear

The promise uninvited souls

Brought as present

Till the dust settled

And the path found its reason

To follow

And be lost around the bend

And then

When all roads

Came to an end

I stood upon that wall

And whispered

A name

A time

When promises

Were never shared

Just

Given

As presents

For being

Let in

August 19, 2019

Friday, August 16, 2019

A Donkey Turning a Millstone is not Trying to Press Oil from Sesame Seed. He is Fleeing the Blow That Was Just Struck and Hoping to Avoid the Next (Rumi)

Millstones grind

Like memories do

And all becomes powder

And all flies with the evening wind

I have seen desert Marigold flower

Ignore the sun and heat

And only drink of the moon

To give a shade to the quail

But when the rain washes away

All the comfort of the harsh days

What remains are deep scars

That have no wounds

That have no memory

Of the blow

Just the patience

Of survival

About the Photo: I took it in Morocco with a 1970's Minolta Autocord TLR camera.

August 16, 2019

Saturday, August 10, 2019

National Awakening Through Poetry, Prose and Music: the Finnish, Estonian and Armenian Historical Experiences

It has been more than a century since the Finns discovered enough of an identity to separate themselves from the Russians. Indeed it was in 1917 that today’s Finland was born. And I was thinking about the discovery of identity lately, not of a tribe or a nation but of an individual. I posted an essay about monosyllabs that got me a lot of email feedback from readers especially from Northern Europe. In my essay (https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2019/07/monosyllabic.html) I said that at some point we do what helps us become who we inherently are instead of trying to minimize antagonism. I was speaking about individuals, but I think it also relates to communities and nations.

… Looking back at human history, it seems like there are a few descriptors of human groups that eventually result in an identity. These are – customs, cuisine, costumes and geographic contingency. Eventually these influence dialects that become variations of a common language. When the four “C”s and the language converge and come together at a point in history, I think one gets an identity.

And, as all epiphanies of identity, the result is independence.

… I approached my education about Finland and Estonia by watching Finnish movies and TV series on Netflix. Why? I do not know. I had never seen Finnish, Swedish or Estonian TV series and decided it would give me a glimpse into cultures that I know very little about. So, for a week after sunset I watched dramatic movies and crime series in their original language with subscripts/subtitles. It took me about 10 minutes to realize that there was no foul language, no blood, no guns and no car chases. In addition all special effects were left out and what we were offered were human interactions and introspection. It was refreshing and I was in a delightful comfort zone.

So, I looked for a translation of the Kalewala. It seemed the logical thing to do to understand how poetry would have helped a nation find its identity. A national awakening through a montage of folk poetry is not unique – many nations have distilled their identity through music, poetry and storytelling. Yet the Finnish Kalewala seems unique in the sense that the collection of poetry and the montage of the various parts were the vision of an individual, Elias Lönnrot, and which was then organized into an epic poem culminating in the 1917 separation of the Finnish from the Soviets and declaring independence and sovereignty.

This line of learning led me to Kalevipoeg, which is the compilation of prose from Estonia that lead to the Estonian awakening and identity. Both documents, poetry or prose, mention Kalevi as the giant who fought evil and created two nations.

… As an Armenian, I know that the creation of an alphabet or the systematic compilation of folk stories and music creates the tangible difference between communities and geo-political regions. Mesrop Mashdots, an Armenian linguist, created the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD presumably using the Greek alphabet as a guide. And in the late 18^th century a cleric, Komidas Vartabet collected folk music and songs before he suffered mental and psychological meltdown witnessing the Hamidian (Ottoman) massacres of Armenians. He spent the last 20 years of his life in a paranoid state in an asylum. But what he compiled and saved determined an identity that more than a century later is taught in schools in the Diaspora and in the motherland.

I grew up with that identity so I understand very well how in Sufism Majnooon and Layla is the most influential Islamic literary work based on love and rejection, and how Kalewala and Kalevipoeg would awaken national identities. I cannot fathom that Shakespeare had not read Majnooon and Layla, and that the Finns and Estonians did not know about the 12 giants in mythology all descendants of Titan. Or, that the Irish giant Fionn Mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) fought the Scottish giant Bennandoner to allow passage from Ireland to Scotland.

.. But all that is myth and legend -- now I need to just figure out why I so much like the Finnish drama series on and especially Pihla Viitala on Netflix!

August 10, 2019