Day 507.

On Pride

I'm proud, this year, of Hanifeh, the young, Shia Muslim, Afghani woman whom I've never met, with the Sunni husband of whom her family does not approve and the three year old daughter named Dayana, and who lives on the 10th floor of my grandmother's apartment building in Toronto, and who has begun to help my Mamani bathe, as she has trouble stepping in and out of the tub on her own.

Day 482.

( <--- I had just sneezed.)

Some Kind Of Poem.

i know of sorrow in torrents.
my heart is bending, learning
how to be with a trickle that may or may not become a stream
weaving between and through
the crocuses and wildflowers.
it picks up some sticks along the way
leaves behind some mud,
smooths rocks,
and sometimes, joined by all the other
tributaries
ends in that warm and wide pool
my young body once slid down a moss slide
and pierced the still surface of,
before languishing on large rocks
baking like pie crust in the gift of the sun.

Day 151.

Nowhere to hide from the noise pollution of the Fourth of July.

Celebrating historical inaccuracies and the alleged independence of a few.
We are now the oppressed, trapped on the same land as our oppressors,
No idea of what it means to be free
No recollection of any moment of liberation
No other lands to run to and colonize in the name of liberty
(Not that we would, we who have been colonized, and realize it. Our memories and our traumas prevent us from repeating such barbarism, from commiting rape or murder or violating earth, just to have our way.)
Should we forget, we'd be reminded sooner or later:
By, for example, the sound of fireworks, so reminiscent of the sound of bombs dropping overhead (auditory memory branded into souls since time in utero.)