Author: mara.ahmed

THE MOMENT by Margaret Atwood

THE MOMENT
by Margaret Atwood

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

La La La Human Steps: Exaucé/Salt

la la la human steps – dance like u’ve never seen before: Exaucé / Salt is a multimedia performance employing live music, film, video and dramatic lighting and decor to convey the emotional and dramatic dimensions of the choreography. The multidimensionality of Édouard Lock’s imagination draws the spectator into a performance world where sweat and muscle interact with the ephemeral.

“This precisely drawn piece, with its total concentration on pointe dance, sustains a remarkable tension. Shorter dance sequences build a chain of movement that evolves to a poetic river, aided by live music for cello, piano and electric guitar (courtesy of David Lang and Kevin Shields). Projected on the back wall of the stage, images by Lock himself lend this otherwise abstract piece a touch of warmth.”

Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards

a bunch of texans decide ur kids’ school curriculum. they’re not educators, they’re dentists and lawyers, and they want to correct the “liberal bias in academia.” how come no one even talks about this?

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. “We are adding balance,” said the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “Academia is skewed too far to the left.” Full article.

Israeli settlement action ‘an insult’: Obama aide

Israel’s announcement of plans to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem was not only an “insult” to the United States but “destructive” of the Middle East peace process, a top White House official said Sunday. “We have just started proximity talks, that is shuttle diplomacy, between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and for this announcement to come at that time was very destructive.” Full article.

Edward Said on “empire”

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires. (Edward W. Said)

A MOMENT by mara ahmed

A MOMENT

i stand still, gently, silently
in measured quietude,
proportioned gratitude,
concentrated sharply on diffusion –
transport to another state,
another aspect, another day.

a voluptuous breeze slings by:
touching, caressing, inviting,
blending in lazy sunny ways
with little insistence on etiquette –
even-keeled and pleasant,
careless of its fluid seduction.

light enters into the cave,
a stranger in the cloud forest –
sliced, transmuted by giant fronds,
disembodied, unrepentant –
it tricks the eye, sheds bulky heat
to slyly mix with ribboned leaves.

i close my eyes and breath, deeply,
the rich verdant aroma of the forest,
the balmy breeze, the stunted heat,
the coqui’s song, shimmery and sweet,
i feel profoundly present, yet ethereal,
unbound by time-space coordinates

no mental maps, obsessive turns,
no skipping to predestined stops,
no clogged mind or arteries –
brain flushed of uneven thoughts;
clean, clean, clean and sparse
transfixed by a nascent star –

a concept, a prophesy,
caught in a fishing net, redeemed
from the spiral arms of galaxies,
the sheer folds of dusty dreams,
instinct a vestigial muscle no more
preens the feisty notion, attentively.

ah, i can breathe again,
yes i can truly breathe:
each gulp of air, squeeze of the lung,
each rise and fall, crest and trough,
timed to sweet perfection –
life is mysterious, magnificent.

connectedness, that weathered word;
brainwave to beating heart to ligament,
wind to tree, root to leaf, rich scented soil
to restless deeds and grounded feet –
absolved, absorbed and softly grieved,
maternal womb to earthy tomb.

connectedness, as sweet as cake,
muddies the water of time’s parade
the stagnant mix of past and present
holds court with future’s regal arc –
time dwells in synchronous bent,
a mobius strip of dawn and dusk.

if silence is the medium of poesie
then let me be fully soundless today
let me stand still in muted humility,
and partake of this soulful solitude
let me be one with the forest’s gravity,
i close my eyes to capture a moment.

Naji Hamdan’s Nightmare

The beatings were intended to elicit a confession of involvement with a rotating cast of terrorist groups that would change from one day to the next. Initially, Hamdan protested his innocence. But the threat against his wife was too much, and he broke down. “The interrogator said, You’re going to sign a confession that you’re with Al Qaeda and put your fingerprint on it,” Hamdan remembers. But a few days later, he was taken from his cell to another interrogator, who said he’d received information “from a friendly country” that Hamdan was supporting the Gaza-based Palestinian group Hamas. “He said, You have to change your confession,” said Hamdan. Still fearing for his wife, he told them, “Listen, I’ll do whatever you want.” Full article.

An Oscar for America’s Hubris

No Iraqi had anything to do with attacking us on 9/11, and while we are happy to have an excuse to grab their oil and deploy our bloated military arsenal, the people of Iraq are never more than an afterthought. Whatever motivates Iraqi characters in the movie to throw stones or blow themselves up is unimportant, for they are nothing more than props for a uniquely American-centered show. It is we who matter and they who are graced by our presence no matter how screwed up we may be. Full article.

The Hurt Locker – Part of a deplorable trend

The Iraqi population serves merely as a human landscape in the tense conditions in which the bomb defusers operate. It is the enemy, the bearded Other to the clean-cut US soldier. The local people are portrayed in the film as either faceless, darkly clad terrorists or recognizable types, like the neighborhood merchant… who are also terrorists. The Iraqi characters, such as they are, function largely as prop devices. Unpleasantly, in one extended sequence, the presence of insurgents allows the filmmakers to examine the psychology of soldiers on the verge of a kill. This is passed off as “realism.” Full article.