A Sense of Presence
Hello friends,
I hope that 2023 is starting off gently for you.
One way to ease into the second month of the year is with a question about staying in the present moment. Is that something that you aspire to try? We all know the feeling of being so engrossed in something we’re doing that the concept of time loses its linear meaning and we exist in one all-encompassing moment.
This month, I’ll be taking my cues on coming back to the present, even if just for a few moments, from the pre-Islamic poets and poetesses of the 6th century.
Poetry was integral to the Arabs and prized so highly that a collection of poems were written in gold and hung on the Kaaba in Mecca. The Arab poet Imru Al-Qays whose poem you’ll read below, was the author of one of these seven Hanging Poems or Suspended Odes.
The Suspended Odes are magical things that we can spend years engaging with. Like they hung from the Kaaba, they suspend themselves from our minds, providing us with a pulsing relationship with the inner and outer world, and all through the form of metaphors: the night sky is like waves, a beautiful woman is like a shining lantern that guides the way, a stallion’s muscles are shackled monsters, blood is like henna, lightening is an arm that extends in the fog. They move us between a world that is and a world that could be, a world of reality and a world of imagination, until they are both one world and one existence.
Through them, we understand the poets’ individual and collective history and therefore can find avenues to understanding our own. We are called to bring our attention to life just at the moment before it escapes us and becomes part of the past. We are invited to listen to the heartbeat of a world that is in constant motion, in constant present moment motion. Poetry does not change reality or the now, but it can show us how to make changes in our own lives. This way of paying attention can be the beginning of freedom.
The language of poetry is simultaneously the language of now and the language of what has gone. It is the language of coincidence and surprise, of intimacy and curiosity.
Is that how you view life? Perhaps by dwelling in that space, we can remain true to ourselves and aligned with the ways of universe.
Stop Remember Weep
for the one I loved and the place we would met
Where the sands thin between al-Dakhoul and Hawmal
Traces are still there at Toodih and Miqraa
woven by the north wind and the south wind
The morning she left
everyone saddled up by the acacia stand
while I cut bitter colocynth
My companions reined in their mounts
don’t be a baby they said to me
take it like a man etcetera
But tears are my medicine
so where in these ruins is a place I can cry
From “The Suspended Ode”
By Imru Al-Qays
Translated by Robyn Creswell
On a separate note, if you’re going to be at the Emirates Literature Festival this month, check out a copy of my English translation of Mostafa Salameh (my husband’s) book for children: Everest Adventure: Fulfilling the Dream (Jabal Amman Publishing House).
Click here for link to my bio.
