Contrasting thoughts
Posted: Sunday, 26 August 2007 |
And so I leave Tiree for six weeks in the desert of the Sahara.
'In time's desert I feel your presence.
In the rock's silence I hear your footstep.
Emotion overcomes me.
Then, like a sudden downpour
Fear of death startles me'. (`Abd Al-Sabour 1992,
8 months of the year I currently spend in the Libyan Sahara, it is a place of meditation...the silence, the space...is totally humbling. The previous poem frankly sums up what we all finally face, life for us all is finite.
Enjoy it while you can. Carpe Diem...
"For Arab poets, the desert in its presence or absence is power, but this power takes different forms. . . .In all cases, the desert is a context, whether a life threat or a life, and it has a voice."
Sahara means desert in Arabic, an arid space, desolate and waste-also with the sense of being open and unprotected, borderless (jarda). Such a contrast to my island home ?
While passing through the busy terminal 1 at Heathrow I was hit with the simple thought that ,I felt a fear, the fear of humanity. While in my home environment, sailing or wandering through my vast desert home, I am outwith the tidal wave of discontent that is pushing humanity at ever increasing speed towards the abyss.
And an 11 year old boy is murdered while playing football & we (the people I work with and I) find another 10 bodies in the sand near to the Sudan border, one wearing a manchester united shirt. And the world is so small, too small for this sadness. And yet the PC attitude of the 'have's' is still imposed on the 'have nots'.
yes the 'Fear of death startles me'...yet the anger that can take an innocent life scares me nearly as much as the PC attitude that these actions should go unpunished...or that a life sentence for murder can mean 12 years?
.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth...life for a life...
Comments
I appreciate your sentiments, tho I don't know whether I agree with all you say or not. But your photo is great!
Ruthodanort from Unst
So that's Tiree and Coll showing their hangers and floggers off. Thank you for that.
Flying Cat from wimpy pinko loco
I agree with you to a degree, I have nephews abroad, young "boys" fighting wars not of our making, For their age, the atrocities witnessed are worse than any non military person could imagine, these are senseless killings, where neighbour is at war with neighbour. At home, we contend with gangsters and hoodlums, who nevertheless are committing crimes of murder and such like, 12yrs you quoted, I can quote 4 yrs, he killed a man but was out in under 3yrs for good behaviour whilst in prison. Where was his civility and good bahaviour, before he was jailed?
Ac from Coll
I too have spent time in the desert, UAE, and I understand you are saying. Take care of yourself out there
Squidgy the Otter from Coll
I am all for prison sentences being what they say on the tin and not halved for keeping your nose clean, which anyone with a bit of nous can do, but if the systems are not rubustly in place to work at reform IN our over-stuffed, under-staffed facilities, no-one benefits from the 'revolving door', neither the perpetrators nor the victims. Reform rather than revenge.
Flying Cat from a balanced view
"muterings about life and distant shores...an off shore view"
A World wandering from my Tiree home
RSS Feed