Walking a Protest

The Israeli-Hamas conflict sparked a huge protest here in London over the few days straddling the two years. About 5000 people gathered to form a human barrier across the road just outside the Israeli Embassy, where my apartment also happens to be. A protestor started a fire once, but the protest has been otherwise peaceful (though loud). The protestors march up every evening, just as the rush hour traffic comes on. I had to walk with them (too briefly) one day to get back to my apartment and I got a glimpse of who they really were - Palestinian men, women and their children. Some of them were crying, others in a daze. I saw a little girl in a pink jacket, possibly no older than 3 years of age, dragging a sign that said "STOP THE GENOCIDE" behind her, like an evil toy. I'm not sure why she was there. Though I am not sure what good a demonstration would do, it was moving, to say the least, to see so many people motivated by a purpose, a hope, an ideal, and worse to know that they were crying for loved ones.


(Londoners have sunk into complaining about how the demonstrations disrupt their traffic routes, and the world hasn’t stopped spinning.)

Preliminary Suicide of A Desolation

So I will let the frost consume me
And dusk crawl to my fingertips
The spiders of cold to ravage my lungs
And life to scuttle away
A moment now, any moment
I will be spared from thawing.

(It snowed in Central London today, briefly, lightly, beautifully)

Yes, you can save me

No resolution for the year.

My New Year's page comes a day late, but the Gods of the Future, of all entities, should not condemn me for not observing tradition, I think. But this year, I notice that this is exactly how it is: just another day. The autumn academic year that straddles the two calandars doesn't allow for a big upheaval of material goals and goods, and I grudgingly admit that 'spirit' is rarely thick enough to surivive without accompanying materialism. I have not woken up to a clean slate either, today, and the day after and after, remains dusted with the grit of 2008.

It has been a good year: one that opened my eyes, my heart and unfolded my spine. I have begun to see the world and all its people, and some of them. I am no longer watched: no one to chart my progress, no one to witness my achievement, no one to anticipate my future, no one to examine and explore my mind and body. I am watching now, and learing more than ever. I have come one full circle, back into a respite of anticipation and fear. Freedom masters too many of us that it fetters me.

But I welcome the year, the world. And perhaps one day, in some corner of the future, it will welcome me, too.