Hakim

The wise. The learned.

Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depricate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters ... Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will.
Frederick Douglass 

When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.

Ethiopian proverb 

A question of politics

Let us teach both ourselves and others that politics does not have to be the art of the possible...but that it also can be the art of the impossible, that is, the art of making both ourselves and the world better.

Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia,1990 

"Corn taught us Mayan people about community life and its diversity, because when one cultivates corn one realizes that there is a variety of crops such as herbs and medical plants depending on the corn plant as well. We see that in this coexistence the corn is not selfish, the corn shows us how to resist and how to relate with the surrounding world.”

Mayan community leader.

You Belong

Worn, wooden houses stand apart in space only the States could afford,

on their open porches fly flags waving majestically as if they were privy to your pending arrival.

Floorboards creek where forgotten footsteps rise to greet the expectant crowd,

the door blows open, and for a moment time stops-

rewinds, and adjusts while family members reacquaint.

You sink into the sofa kept warm in your absence and it becomes your throne for the night,

like a safety belt clicking into place, everything fits; there is a context to your madness.

Before long your humor crescendos feeding off the encouraging giggles of others,

jokes roll off your tongue as if comedy were your native language; you tease in a way only family can.

Next, dinner is served; no need for official welcomes – the food gleams with love,

home cooked meat is devoured and the bones are licked, sucked then polished clean in salutation.

Snippets of news are exchanged over the table then quickly forgotten,

instead stories are recounted; scenes brought to life as clear as your sister’s perfect pitch in song.

I watch you unwind in a home bubbling with memories, noise and laughter,

like sunshine reflecting off water, your family beams with pride to see who you have become.

They are as implicit in your success as you are in theirs,

And whether your stay is a handful of days or weeks that overspill into months, in this home you will always belong.

Honour your own struggles.