In the strange reversal of circumstances that have taken place since the Sochyi Olympics seemed to have breathed new vitality into a lifeless Soviet cadaver, this commentator intuits and fears the possible return to times we all could and should have done without.
When such dangers threaten, he worries that as our beloved Bard, Walt Whitman warned:
“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean…” That’s when he turns to poets for encouragement.
When the war-mongers and saber-rattlers strive to convince us our only route to peace is through warfare, he repeats Whitman’s reminder: “Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”
Marram Al Massri is a Syrian escapee now living in Paris. She is neither a terrorist nor a revolutionary; just a poet and this is her poem:
“Knocks on the door,
Who?
I sweep the dust of my loneliness
Under the rug.
I arrange a smile
And open.”
Sometimes poets make the best negotiators.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
