Ramadan 2009

In Muslim nations and regions around the globe, this is the first week of the holy month of Ramadan, a time for followers to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual activity during the day, breaking their fast each sunset, with traditional meals and sweets. During this time, Muslims are also encouraged to read the entire Quran, to give freely to those in need, and strengthen their ties to God through prayer. The goal of the fast is to teach humility, patience and sacrifice, and to ask forgiveness, practice self-restraint, and pray for guidance in the future. This year, Ramadan will continue until Saturday, September 19th.

A crescent moon is seen behind the King Hussein Bin Talal Mosque in Aman, Jordan
August 23, 2009 during Ramadan



Imam Ahmad Raza (1856-1921 India)

Hearing the clamour about the new moon, I, rushing to you have come!
O` Saqi, I will forever be yours, bring me some wine, Ramadan has come!

With the exception of this one rose, every flower with deafening silence will come!
This the nightingale shall see, when the time of sorrow does come!

When that darling of my life did reveal his Divine Light`s peak!
Every head fell down, bowed, every heart did feverish become!

Having mistaken Paradise for Madina, here I have come!
Now looking at every face, I ask "whither have I come?!"

Except for Madina all gardens will become annihilated, trampled!
You will see this O` denizens of the garden, when winter does come!

The head and the stones of that abode, the eyes and that place of light!
The ingrate is thinking of his homeland after here having come!

The art of writing poetry in the Prophet`s honour is unique indeed!
The intellect has become dazed, dizzy has the imagination become!

How the ground beneath did burn, how fierce was the heat!
Here! That Shadowless Prophet has a cool shadow for us become!

I have just come from Madina O` dwellers of Paradise
How does one survive, who from there to here does come?!

There! Be freed now from the ring of pain O` carrier-pigeon!
With a letter of forgiveness in his hand, that Chieftain has come!
(sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam)

Be erased from Raza`s Tablet of Deeds o` bad works!
Look! Here to my aid my Acchay Mian has come!

Be happy Raza all bad things will be transformed into good!
That beloved Acchay Mian, master of all good people has come!]

A woman at fifty

“In the very beginning, there were no people on the earth, but there was one woman.” A Bushmen saying.

A Woman at Fifty

I see you
a full moon rising
in the red desert

I see you in owl flight
own flight
I see a great moon rising
over the sand

I hear a drum
beating your rhythm
a crone voice in the dark
singing
This is life after earthlife
homelife, children

Your altar
I see the ruby wine, the bread
Have you ever listened
beneath the voices?
Can you see the white candle
breaking open the black cave?

I see a light-limbed dancer
hands throwing fire ash into the night
It is time to make love to a place within
small pleasures with no price.

I see an even-handed drummer
stepping through the fire in beat to your night poem
bringing your hidden self to the dance
so you fly in your own body

through an underground river
the blood courses
held once only in love-fevered veins
now in night flight, star flight

I see a woman in her own time
crone and owl
in her own fantastic history
I see you

And when you are
far away
when I look for you
I will find you - feet in Kalahari sand
and an audience of hands applauding

Christina Coates

Forgiveness

A Poem of Forgiveness

I want to wash myself
in the ebb and flow
of the ocean as it sings

its gentle lullaby today,
salt stinging skin
that only recently remembered
how to heal itself.

I stare into the blue lure
hunting for my own reflection,
until it finds me
on the soft curve of a wave

falling towards the rocks,
hungry for its lover’s touch.

In the small silences
between each ocean breath
I open myself to the sound I need
to forgive myself,

only to feel it slip
between my fingers
as the wave retracts
and rolls itself back
to its roots
within the depths,

where even forgiveness
doesn’t matter.

Lucille Greeff

Song of the ocean

A trace of gray

Unpublished Poem written by my friend Stephen Rowe - 21 August 2009

Photo by Ron Dubin

A trace of gray lingers on week long storms

that hug the mid west twilight

Ground pounding light and thunder shows

Soak the summer lands

drain the warm

as cool front winds

greet the fall.

I stood on what used to be the prairie,

watching rolling clouds

forming over endless fields of corn and beans

cut only by sparse tree lines left as wind breaks.

Where did all of the forests go? I thought as the

evening sky parted and a once in a lifetime

sun shine filled my eyes

and I did not turn away or fear to hear the
calling

"It is not what one is, rather who one is that is paramount."
Stephen Craig Rowe

Starry starry night

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of --
shall I say the word -- religion.
Then I go out at night to paint the stars.

--Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

"Starry, starry night" the music

Photo by Dan Ransom

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

Anne Sexton

Liquorish

the night

stretches

like liquorish

sweet and dark

with its overwhelming

smell

not quite nice

my head fills

overflows

with contradictions

and good intentions

that spill

on the floor

spreading

before the thought

of you

Peter Hollard

Hijacked

 

 

Table Mountain glows on the edge of sight
As turquoise sea reflects cool afternoon light.
Dogs fetch balls for kids who play
And a windsurfer drifts in at dying day.
Picnic baskets open, drinks spill down
Peace and contentment in this seaside town.

A drive back home for supper that waits
Wife and kids hop out to open the gate.

Whites of eyes and spittle flies
Waved knife and pointed gun
Pistol-whipped, beaten for the fun
A shot rings out, a life is snuffed
In a beautiful country that fuels my disgust

 

Peter Hollard

If I know a song of Africa . . . ..

If I know a song of Africa,
of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back,
of the plows in the fields
and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers,
does Africa know a song of me?
Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on,
or the children invent a game in which my name is,
or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me,
or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?


Karen Blixen

Mozart's clarinet concert from the movie "Out of Africa"

Hope

 

 

Flat veld stretches an horizon

Shorn of trees

As wind whips sand from dunes

Blasting fynbos.

"Be calm," she says.

 

Wild things move close to the ground

In quick rushes

While above, vultures circling high

Seek those fallen.

"I am here," she says.

 

Blistering sun flaming high above

Pins shadow down

Then clouds, shredded, fight for form

Sucked dry.

"Believe," she says.

 

A farmhouse in the distance

Shimmering white

Holds hope

 

Peter Hollard

Bicycle sonder 'n slot

"Bicycle sonder 'n slot" is one of the most beautiful and sad Afrikaans love songs. It is written and sung by the Afrikaans singer, Koos Kombuis.

English visitors can visit his English blog here.


The title of the song means "Bicycle without a lock"

The narrator is talking to his high school sweetheart of many years ago, Karin.
He asks her if she still remembers how they bunked school; their nights with candles and cold drink in an old "kaia"- a hut . . . . .
He tells her how he used to bring her flowers and lent her his most precious possession - his bicycle without a lock . . .
how he used to visit her late at night after her parents have gone to bed, just to tell her that he loved her . . . ..
He reminds her how they climbed the hills and how they rode his bicycle on the hem of a dream . what if, when you are big, life is like swimming against the stream?
All their questions were like kites wavering on a tree . . .
In the last stanza he tells her that she must understand that the years, like wine, mature in barrels filled with friendship and sunshine . . . .


Painting by South-African painter John Kramer

Bicycle sonder 'n slot

Karin onthou jy ons kuiers met koeldrank
alleen in die kaia van jeugtyd se groen
onthou die dae van skool bank en kerse
die nagte met honde en goed om te doen

ek bring vir jou blomme
ek gee jou genot
ek leen jou my bicycle sonder 'n slot
ek weet dit is laat
en jou ma-hulle slaap
maar ek moes net vir jou sê
ek het jou lief soos die Kaap

saam het ons bulte geklim in die somer
en fietsgery al op die soom van 'n droom
wat is jy as jy groot is, is die lewe net stroomop?
al ons vrae het gewapper soos vlieërs aan 'n boom

Karin verstaan dat jare soos wyn
kan oud word in kanne vol vriendskap en son
weet jy dat net kinders liewe Jesus kan liefhê
maar dat kinders die wêreld al meer gaan verstom

The song "Bicycle sonder 'n slot"

Only the rope . . . .

alleen het touw
heeft nog weet van de dromen
van het bootje

Photo and poem by Saskia De Boer

Saskia de Boer

Je hebt me alleen gelaten - You left me alone

je hebt me alleen gelaten
maar ik heb het je allang vergeven

want ik weet dat je nog ergens bent
vannacht nog, toen ik door de stad
dwaalde, zag ik je silhouet in het glas
van een badkamer

en gisteren hoorde ik je in het bos lachen
zie je, ik weet dat je er nog bent

laatst reed je me voorbij met vier
andere mensen in een oude auto
en ofschoon jij de enige was die
niet omkeek, wist ik toch dat jij
de enige was die mij herkende de enige die
zonder mij niet kan leven

en ik heb geglimlacht

ik was zeker dat je me niet verlaten zou
morgen misschien zul je terugkomen
of anders overmorgen of wie weet wel nooit

maar je kunt me niet verlaten


Hans Lodeizen (1924-1950)

The original words of the following Afrikaans song was written by Hans Lodezein . . . . . ..


"Onthou jy nog?"
"Do you still remember?"

“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,"

Photo by Malubs

The Weary Blues

by Langston Hughes

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,

Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,

I heard a Negro play.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night

By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light

He did a lazy sway. . . .

He did a lazy sway. . . .

To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.

With his ebony hands on each ivory key

He made that poor piano moan with melody.

O Blues!

Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool

He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.

Sweet Blues!

Coming from a black man’s soul.

O Blues!

In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone

I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—

“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,

Ain’t got nobody but ma self.

I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’

And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.

He played a few chords then he sang some more—

“I got the Weary Blues

And I can’t be satisfied.

Got the Weary Blues

And can’t be satisfied—

I ain’t happy no mo’

And I wish that I had died.”

And far into the night he crooned that tune.

The stars went out and so did the moon.

The singer stopped playing and went to bed

While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.

He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.

The swing swings high

The swing, swings high
And now its low
Weightless once
Then pinned below
Round and round
And round we go
Giddy now
The status quo
While puppets play
Its all a show
Come join me then
What's more to know?

Peter Hollard

Death is not the end - Bob Dylan

When you're sad and when you're lonely And you haven't got a friend Just remember that death is not the end And all that you held sacred Falls down and does not mend Just remember that death is not the end Not the end, not the end Just remember that death is not the end When you're standing on the crossroads That you cannot comprehend Just remember that death is not the end And all your dreams have vanished And you don't know what's up the bend Just remember that death is not the end Not the end, not the end Just remember that death is not the end When the storm clouds gather round you And heavy rains descend Just remember that death is not the end And there's no-one there to comfort you With a helping hand to lend Just remember that death is not the end Not the end, not the end Just remember that death is not the end For the tree of life is growing Where the spirit never dies And the bright light of salvation Up in dark and empty skies When the cities are on fire With the burning flesh of men Just remember that death is not the end When you search in vain to find Some law-abiding citizen Just remember that death is not the end Not the end, not the end Just remember that death is not the end Not the end, not the end Just remember that death is not the end