Home, Despair & Identity
This week, we have an art print of Wendell Berry’s ‘The Peace of Wild Things’, a review of ‘Murder in Mahim’, poetry from Gaza and an illustrated guide to finding home.
When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things…
We have been following Mr Berry’s path, making our way to a small pocket of green in our neighbourhood. Ironic as it is, with our building repairs going on, the mynas have found a perch on the bamboos, and wake us up early every morning. There are days though when even birdsong isn’t enough. There is just too much despair, making it harder to read, write or create something. But how are we to survive if we don’t? If we don’t engage with the good in the world, we might as well be dead. It’s as Katie Farris says, I do this, “To train myself to find, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world.” So here’s our second offering: Wendell Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things.
DM us to order your print. Shipping available across India.
Books: Murder in Mahim by Jerry Pinto
Investigating the murder of a young man, found dead at Matunga railway station, retired journalist Peter Fernandes stumbles upon the seedy underbelly of Mumbai. How railway stations - the very lifelines of Mumbai - take on a different role at night, how the police keep their pockets lined, how love is criminalised and sex workers trampled upon. How rigid laws concerning homosexuality spawn a secret language. How the absence of legitimacy fosters abuse. Through Fernandes - who grapples with the sexuality of his own son - we gain an insight into the gay community. Murder in Mahim is more than a murder mystery; Pinto’s compassionate writing about gender identity fosters understanding even as it exposes the ugly facets of the city that never sleeps. A good read for Pride month.
Poetry: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha
For Alicia M. Quesnel, MD
i
When you open my ear, touch it
gently.
My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.
Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium
when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness.
You may encounter songs in Arabic,
poems in English I recite to myself,
or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.
When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.
Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.
ii
The drone’s buzzing sound,
the roar of an F-16,
the screams of bombs falling on houses,
on fields, and on bodies,
of rockets flying away—
rid my small ear canal of them all.
Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.
Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up.
Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours,
my doctor, day and night.
A Thousand Mornings
We love this illustrated post by Candace Rose Rardon on finding home through the different teas she discovered while traveling. It’s an old post, but a good one. Make yourself a steaming cup before reading this.
Before you go
