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hijira

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Dave
Posts: 1991
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:07 am

hijira

Post by Dave » Wed Mar 18, 2020 12:35 pm

Not in the world
but in me
a what phenomenon

am I?

I stare at, through,
a picture of a leaf -
migrating –

on a river current – 

move as fluidly
as a transgender hijira,

a descendent,
a prodigal,
a lost ideal

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: hijira

Post by indar » Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:32 pm

Wonderful writing dave,

Beautiful imagery embodying an awakening ideal. I am reminded of the writing of Ursula LeGuin who explored ideas pertaining to dichotomous thinking, either/or, gender specific etc via thought experiments played out in other-world species. Especially interesting is "The Left Hand of Darkness" in which she envisions a race of gender neutral people who periodically undergo "kemmering" in which they are able to respond to another by temporarily assuming a complimentary gender. Le Guin challenged many ways of thinking before her time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/184 ... f_Darkness

As to your poem--it is both intimate and vastly atmospheric at once. The migrating leaf speaks to all the ways paradigms are shifting in what may become a brave new world if we let it, including the continuing history of mass migrations and the possibilty of an axial age as defined by Karl Jaspers. Scuse me I've been sitting in my house thinking too much the past few days. I love the poem.

[font]https://humanjourney.us/religious-evolu ... axial-age/[/font]
 

Dave
Posts: 1991
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:07 am

Re: hijira

Post by Dave » Thu Mar 19, 2020 7:16 am

Hey Indar
Thanks for the positive and fascinating response, against which actually the poem pales. I have always been interested in flux and the world at the moment is especially fluid whether gender, sexuality, politics or even nature, which has its own ways of reminding us what is the deepest root of all - life itself. The corona virus just another such adjustment. There are dolphins swimming in the canals of Venice as the water rapidly cleanses and this for many will seem like a portent and a sign of religious meaning in the world.

I am reading Tim Crane The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheists point of view, which also makes for fascinating reading.
Dave

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: hijira

Post by indar » Thu Mar 19, 2020 2:07 pm

Your mention of dolphin in the canals of Venice got me searching online for further good news--swans dolphin and fish to be exact and carbon emissions are down in China enough to have a measurable effect globally. Skies are clearing due to large decrease in air travel. One article said this is an ecological experiment we could never have designed or conducted on this scale. Why aren't we hearing as much about this as about the dire economic impact? The upside, the proof we need to present to science deniers that we need to change our ways? I feel a strange sense of optimism--am i crazy?

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Colm Roe
Posts: 2697
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 12:45 am

Re: hijira

Post by Colm Roe » Thu Mar 19, 2020 8:59 pm

Like this a lot, it has a different feel to it...not a typical Dave poem.
Hadn't a clue what hijira meant. I googled, and OMG, we really are a fucked up species and deserve all we get.
We had a recent trial for female genital mutilation!
I know that wasn't central to the poem...but I still have an uncomfortable feeling in my pants...thanks :shock:

What am I?
The poem nests in the very poignant and excellent last S.
What should I have been!
Indeed.

Dave
Posts: 1991
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:07 am

Re: hijira

Post by Dave » Fri Mar 20, 2020 3:34 pm

Thanks Indar - the future is dolphins!

Thanks Colm



 

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