I am reading, reading, reading poetry.
Some local poets, some long-dead white poets, and over Indian buffet at lunch today, I dined with a book by a Kashmiri poet whose poems almost perfectly describe Jerusalem, if Jerusalem, like Srinigar, had a lake.
"They make desolation and call it peace
...
My memory is again in the way of your history.
Army convoys all night like desert caravans:
In the smoking oil of dimmed headlights, time dissolved - all winter - its crushed fennel.
...
At a certain point I lost track of you.
You needed me. You needed to perfect me:
In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
Your history gets in the way of my memory.
I am everything you lost. You can't forgive me.
I am everythng you lost. Your perfect enemy.
Your memory gets in the way of my memory"
- Agha Shahid Ali "Farewell" | In a Country Without a Post Office
Could he not, if you closed your eyes and listen, be writing about any coveted place, rich with memories, throttled by history? Could he not be writing about your lost love?
