Hasankeyf - a place I will, in the run of most statistics, never visit. It doesn't take much to go there - except a mountain of inertia and fear. But how haunting that name....

Diana Athill - "This isness business - what smartypants called it that? - is, to me, too obvious to be chic........It is the obviousness-the obviousness of the quiet throbbing of life in every object-which has filled for me the silence that should have been left by non-belief, and which makes me question whether I did in fact, stop believing......My senses tell me, not that 'God exists', but that 'it is'." (from 'Instead of a Letter')

Ian Brown - "Set my baby free" (from 'Golden Greats')

What do the above three have in common. Only one thing for me - Honesty. It is honestly where I am now. And it is where life has been lived to the bone.

But you must understand, sometimes with our very thin skins, skin-deep is as close to the bone as we can sometimes get. Sometimes, there is no less love there, you know.

People, people, lovely people,
All sorts, all lines, all colours,
Again Diana has already spoken -
Sometime beauty is reason enough for life....
And for those of us who do not have this
Beauty
How can we justify?
(But you smile...)
Sometimes life is itself a justification,
The isness of all is the reason
And there will be time, some sort of time.

Some sort of reconciliation -
And a beauty
You will see.

Seven Ages of Humankind

You know when somebody's lived beyond seventy, they can't complain if they die cause they've had their chance at living, their chance in Life. This is from a non-socialist, non-egalitarian, apolitical and purely spiritual point of view.
But you'd be surprised how many of us can be judged by this. Because we get our chances, from the moment go, and like the Greats before us, like Gandhi and Mandela and Abraham, we could have chosen one path over another & spent our time and energy on this rather than on that. But we often feel that we have no choice - in our day to day lives. What does that mean, I'm not sure. There are moments of breakthrough in each of our lives I'm sure, but often we strive to reach somewhere and we measure our success in life by how close we got. Perhaps its a matter of having the right resolve, conviction and understanding. But sometimes its difficult to see the wood for the trees, and sometimes you think its not that at all. Some are chosen, others are not.
In any event, with each decade of age you get your chances - for many of us. Sometimes its worth recognising that fact.

To Sevki K and Polly R

You know how it is,
Suddenly there is a death,
Two deaths,
And life goes on.
Silly questions an' all.

I wanted to say something somewhere
Post something on some blog
So you would know -
I'm touched too.

Two people who were so loved,
Who touched so MANY people's lives
Who were SO special.
They touched me too,
I loved them too.

Its like the Princess Di syndrome all over again.

But forget all that -
One thing they both had in common I think -
They loved their lives, their moment in time,
They thought life was special and the lives they came across
Were special.

I tend to be in the opposite camp. Rather,
nobody's that special, life ain't nothing special.

But why then would I wish to say Something.
Why would I wish to be heard.

I'm sure God will forgive all in his infinite wisdom - someday.

In the meanwhile,
These two were just amazing stars
And they do make the world a very special place
To know.

May you both enjoy the peace you have both so fully earned.

My pain will be His
It will be a promise between us
My only gift, all that I possess
To Him I will give -
All my shame and all my sin
My fear and my hate
That black canker eating away
What no human eye ever saw.

They will see the smiles
They will notice the calm
They will talk of the plenty
But they will not know of the shadow,
A secret that hangs
Between Him and me.

Shadow dark and drear
Desperate and murderous
Seeking only to mutilate
Only to annihilate.

She is shrieking and kicking
Crying to be let out,
She is gagged and laced
With a seaman's rope.

Digging in deeper and deeper
Into her own flesh
She tears and cuts away
At her own flesh....and bone.

And all they ever will see
Is a sweet-smiling
Glass-eyed, pink-cheeked dolly.

When out of gratitude
She opened her mouth
-to give her heartfelt thanks,
All that would come out
Was her bloodied thumping
Heart.

- written in summer 1992 -