Sunday 3 February 2019

News from nowhere




You know, I can’t say exactly where I am
but here the skies at night are bright with stars,
the earth is deep and cold against my scars
and though I’ve lost the map, I’m far from home –
the tents glow in the dark like low burning flames
flickering small in alabaster lamps.
You can call it a milestone, this lonely camp
or just another pit stop on the way,
a different northern route to get back someday
and I’ll go back to you, from where I came.
Everything will have utterly changed meanwhile
and yet everything will still be the same –
faded handprints on our walls and doorframes.
My feet on the flagstones. The thrill of your smile.





Well, I'm so glad January is over, it's been rough. Not just for me personally, but also for a lot of people I know, online and off. Relieved to get through without any major damage. 

As in most other years, I'll be doing my own version of love poems to mark the month, though I'm not a big believer in V-day. Love is kind of an everyday thing around here, if you know what I mean. Like a low grade fever. You're not in bed flailing around focussed on being delirious and blind, being plied assiduously with chicken soup and ginger tea. Nope. Just that your eyes are glittery and/or swimmy, your pulse is a tad faster, your entire perspective a bit heightened. But you're going about filing documents and filling up the fuel tanks just as usual. 

It's a nonstop party inside even when the mask looks stern and the hands are smeared with some nameless gunk.  Because the heart is nearly always festooned with tinsel and with those fairy lights which won't stop twinkling. It too, is like a candle behind impassive, translucent stone, for the want of a better analogy.  The glow of love and gratitude and amazement doesn't always show up from outside, but I assure you, it's always there.

Happy February!

16 comments:

  1. Love is an integral component to a pleasant/rewarding life isn't it? Not romance so much (though a smattering is welcome) but love. Amazement and wonder float my boat too. Lots of mixed metaphors there but I am too tired to sort them into something tidier. I hope February is kinder to you - and the world.

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    1. And to you too - I can so relate to the exhaustion, EC.

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  2. Hari Om
    A beautiful flow of thought here today, Nila... and interestingly, I was having something of a similary 'muse' this very morning! Not in relation to the romantic love pushed by Hallmark for February, but the True Love Universal and how it manifests even in small acts and considered words... Sending hugs. YAM xx

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    1. That's exactly what I was trying to say - there's no big drama about the True Love Universal. It goes around its business on tiptoes and most of the time you don't even notice the footprints. Hugs back to you.

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  3. Well said. Love is quietly there every day.
    Hope February is a much better month.

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    1. Thank you, it already feels better. Quiet is the operative word. Fake emotions, like empty vessels, make the most noise :)

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  4. Hi Nila - love the wanderings and hearing about your news from nowhere. I've just finished reading a book by Dava Sobel 'The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars' ... I was lost in it - yet appreciated her write up on those amazing ladies back in the 1800s to early 1900s ...

    Love is always around - just some people are unsure how to show it - but family and friends are there for us ... your take on it is just right ... it's part of life.

    I too hope February eases life for us all - looking forward to the poems ... cheers Hilary

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    1. That sounds like a really interesting book! Strange but true - am in the middle of 'The Children's Book' by A.S. Byatt which is set in the late 1800s to early 1900s too.

      Thanks for the reco.

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  5. January has been a January - never a favorite month. But I do hope February's love haze can help us all muck along. Your words and images flow into different corners of meaning - I love (see, there's that word) them. "Faded handprints"....that image struck me.
    Take care and like Hilary, above, I look forward to more.

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    1. That's it exactly - love is always a haze and doesn't lift.

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  6. I like the comparison to a low grade fever.

    Hope your February goes well. As for Valentine's Day, I can take it or leave it.

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    1. It is some kind of affliction for sure, the chronic kind :) I have nothing against V-day, love and let love is the preferred policy around here, I'm just not into ostentatious celebrations generally.

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  7. 'The glow of love and gratitude and amazement doesn't always show up from outside, but I assure you, it's always there.'So true, or at least we can hope. My WEP story looks at a more gruesome perspective, yet the truth for too many.
    Hope your February is all that you hope for...x

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    1. Thanks, Denise, so far so good, fingers crossed! :) Looking forward to getting back to WEP and reading everybody's take on Toi's awesome creative theme.

      'Things always go better in a WEP month' - 11th reason!

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  8. That opening paragraph...
    I've been there. I like it there. That's my home.

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