Wednesday 3 January 2018

Hello, 2018!!






Not many photos of the grass
-  so remiss! So remiss, because
the earth there wears a festive lace,
it shimmers when a mild breeze blows.

Not many photos of the grass
as it’s not in the line of sight,
effort’s needed to find the grace
that’s not obviously supersized.

Just one photograph of the grass
to snag memory in a snare.
The small always made even less,
ignored as if it isn’t there.

But the grass underfoot makes me ache,
it’s lace, and longing, and heartbreak.




I was in the African savannahs over the holidays. Got lots of photos of the wildlife, the big 5, the mammals, even the smaller less drooled-over species like dung-beetles and lizards. The variety and the beauty of the grasses blew my mind, the delicacy of their seedpods, the slant of their bending to the winds. I didn’t get too many photographs though, the breeze was always blurring the picture, when I made the effort to focus in the first place, that is. Which is odd when you think of it, because surely the star of the show in the grasslands ought to be the grasses and not befanged and betrunked animals?

But I got a few photos, and one of them is up there for your consumption, for whatever it’s worth. Not every magical moment/thing can be clicked and binary-coded into hard disks and boxed up even if I were to be less remiss – that too is a life lesson in acceptance.

I also had this vague expectation, fully aware it was wrong and therefore duly afraid of being disillusioned as well - this mixed and mixed-up expectation that somehow it would offer me a route to the utter peace, the aching content that the savannahs of my childhood did. It was a thinly veiled attempt to return to lapsed spaces and times. Which of course was doomed to fail from the outset. 

But as it turned out, it wasn’t a failure.  The landscapes of the East are different from the West where I spent my childhood - the acacia species, the missing baobabs, the mango trees laden with a totally different red-magenta fruit. Even some of the grasses felt different. But that heart-stopping hushed feeling when in the savannahs, stretching from where your feet are planted to the horizons? Exactly the same. You breathe deep, and you mentally clasp your hands together in gratitude.

Welcome! to M-i-V in 2018, which is going to be roughly the same as it was in 2017, but hopefully a little wiser, a little less remiss, with a slightly clearer focus on the grasses while keeping an eye out for the betrunked and the befanged in the savannahs of life.





16 comments:

  1. You once again led us into your world through words. I could envision the stirring grasses and the need to run through them barefoot. The wistfulness is there.
    Good poem and start to 2018. I'm in for the journey.

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  2. So while it was familiar and didn't really take you back, it still was something new to cherish.
    Hope you'll post more of those photos.

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    1. Oh yes, totally something to cherish. I'm going to figure out a way to get some of the photos here.

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  3. Sounds like a wonderful adventure. I take pictures of nature and seldom get what I assumed when shooting it. But then again, maybe I haven't look deep enough. Love the poem and the picture!
    Happy 2018!

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    1. It was an awesome adventure - inward and outward :) Happy New Year!

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  4. Love this journey through your heart.
    And an emphatic yes to the beauty of grasses rippling in the breeze. So often golden grasses....

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    1. Thank you! So glad you enjoyed the safari :) There is actually a separate branch of study devoted to the grasses alone, and this holiday made me feel like I should have taken it up ... :) Such evocative names, too - foxtail, lovegrass. And some of them prettier than lilies.

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  5. It's often quite difficult, but not always impossible, to recapture feelings from our youth.

    I loved the line "surely the star of the show in the grasslands ought to be the grasses".

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    1. Glad you liked the line. Pity it dawned on me on the last day of the safari :)

      It may be possible to recapture feelings from our youth...but should there be such an attempt? What does it achieve? Just pondering...

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    2. Well, depending on the feeling or memory you're trying to relive, sometimes it can make you happy, even if only for the briefest time.

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    3. Valid point! and happiness is always brief in default mode...

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    4. Right. Comedian Denis Leary, of all people, once said "Happiness comes in small doses folks." I'd quote more, but the rest of the routine predictably includes a small dose of profanity.

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    5. Well, happiness can lie in a choice expletive :) but that too is necessarily brief. Profanity for a good cause, (and laughter is one in my book) is okay.

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  6. Hi my dear friend Nila! I'm blessed to be welcomed to your blog for another year of shared philosophies, thoughts and writings, even pictures of grass. You've caught my imagination and now I want to go photograph it in all its subtle glory.

    Thanks for your team support for WEP in 2017 and your valued input into the prompts for 2018. WEP is much stronger now!

    HNY, Denise X

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    1. Hi Denise! and a very Happy New Year to you and yours!

      I love what you and Yolanda do over at WEP, and I love being a part of it, thank you.

      Glory is just the right word for the grass - so beautiful and so eternal.

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