Providential coincidence

Yesterday i received a package in the mail - and as most of you know i'm sure, receiving something like this in the mail makes you feel like the happiest person in the world. it was from amazon.com, and so i knew it had to be a book, which made my heart beat faster. it was a gift, just because, from a dear friend of mine.

firstly, thank you Salah. i am in love with the book so far. it's titled The Water of Life. i won't ruin the book for you (so far it is a must read - daddy you'd like it), but let me just say that there are times when you feel connected with someone, and the feeling is just so powerful that you momentarily find yourself separated from things. you will your arms and legs to move, but you find yourself suspended and looking down at a body you recognize as your own. and your spirit is left to traverse the timeless expanses of space to connect with someone else. this sensation grew on me, the more and more i read this book. it was as if everything that i had been wanting and feeling, subconsciously and consciously, was suddenly found in physical form in front of my eyes.

i had a dream two nights ago - i was a gardener, positioned next to millions and millions of other gardeners stationed to infinity to my right. in front of me was a rose bush that likewise extended into the horizon. at once, as if all touched by the same moment, we all began to prune this bush; and with a little blade we all set at removing the thorns. as i read this book, this dream touched my inner Eye and exploded into reality. i have various inklings as to the import of this dream, and i may share them as they begin to take shape.

you know, it's also a really funny thing. i may have said this before, but poems that i wrote a year ago (during which time they held no particular significance to the reality of my life) are beginning to have some semblance of meaning to my present state and the truths that i find. here's the one i remembered as i read this book:

Expectant Moons

I

The hand that reaches out has no
Print, no mark – only the never-ending
Silkiness of dusk and twilight.

It is not from the grave, for cemeteries
Are too rough to hold such a thing; and corpses
Too dry to produce this outcropping of mist and shade.

II

Soundless young girls emit a cry, as if to say
We are poor in love – of course they remain
Unanswered by most, except from the

Colorful tapestry they knit in their wombs
That answers back with rhythm and warmth –
It is not a parasitic love, but one of unsaid

Words and furtive glances. It is a pattern
Drawn of fjords and glaciers, and the steadied
Patience of quilted farmland and flowerbeds.

III

We cannot escape the sensuality of our kind,
And I await the fall of romantic empires
And the music of artistic identity –I close

My eyes with calloused hands crusted over
By the heat of passion and suffering; and silently
Bless the world for this garment of roses.