Becoming the Sun

Giving a poetry workshop on the weather at first seemed like a tall order. But once I started poking around, the poetic possibilities seemed endless. For a start, there are all the different words for "wind" around the world - xlokk, sirocco, hamseen, simoom, sundowner, williwaw...

Then, think about climate change and biodiversity - two things intimately related to the weather. In each London classroom I've visited, biodiversity is on riotous display. Children with names as beautiful and diverse as the wind: Fatimah, Ashok, Timothy, Aliya, Matthias, Natalie, Binah, Princess...

I asked them to use their imaginations and invent new weather patterns to rival 'It's raining cats and dogs'. Plant a seed in children's minds, and the gardens that sprout are either paradisiacal or nightmarish, depending on what they've experienced. 

A little boy from Bangladesh told me about a monsoon he had seen - and its devastating affects. Others drew rainbows of black, gold and red. Storms of coloured snow that stain you blue or pink when the flakes touch your skin. One boy imagined swords and demons raining from the sky, while others preferred blizzards of chocolate and cash.

But the best part was creating poetry with 30 children - all together - about sun, wind, and rain. It gave new meaning to the word 'brainstorm'...

Here's one of my favourites:

Year 3 and the Sun

Last Tuesday in the park,

Under the flaming trees,

We had tea with the Sun.

Our eyes turned to stars

And we saw new worlds.

The trees turned to metal and fire.

The Sun gave us a magic book

And strong armour.

We turned into sunflowers, butterflies

And lions.

We reached out to touch the Sun,

But the Sun disappeared...

We became the Sun!

Imagine standing in front of thirty 7 year-olds, all of them shouting that last line at the top of their lungs: "WE BECAME THE SUN!" In that moment, London must have experienced an electric surge. I know I did.

Light #2

Light #2

Diaspora (n): 

1876, from Greek, diaspora "dispersion," 

from diaspeirein "to scatter about, disperse,"

from dia- "about, across" + speirein "to scatter" (see sprout).

~

In Jewish mysticism, it is said that when God was pouring the first light into the vessels he made to contain it, the light was so hot, the vessels broke.

The light broke too and scattered across the face of the earth, waiting for humans to gather it and make it whole again.

I feel there is a strange connection between breaking, scattering and restoration.

I love the idea that it is only through our cracks and imperfections that the inner light can seep through.

I read a beautiful poem by Christian Wiman recently on the On Being blog called "Every Riven Thing". As the poet explains, riven means "broken, sundered, torn apart".

And that's the mystery. Because within our brokenness, inside our marrow - is the first light that was scattered, just waiting for us to recognize it, and gather it up.

This light is "in us" but not "of us" - in many ways it is:

"The Other, who reveals where you'll go

next. The stranger who should be welcome

in your home, for stranger may also be god."

~ Ruth Padel

So again, there is this paradox - between god and stranger, between what is sacred and what is feared/rejected/reviled. Our challenge is to welcome this fear (or ourselves, mainly) - and then to expose its divinity.

I think the trick is to learn to see ourselves as something remarkable and foreign rather than familiar and banal. And I think we learn see ourselves clearly by travelling.

We read books, listen to music from new places. We spread ourselves across different countries, houses, jobs, relationships. And in this scattering - diaspora - we sow a trail of seeds fed by "the warmth of other suns" (Isabel Wilkerson).

And it is, finally, these other suns that are in us too, filling our narrow bones with wonder - and finally, quietly, with recognition.

I see you

beneath the trees

unafraid of the darkness falling

- a lucid braille -

translating your body 

into light.

Light #1

Light #1

I was thinking the other day about travelling to new places, and how the colour and quality of light is always different, and how we are always changed, even slightly, by absorbing these new frequencies. So of course I wrote a poem...

Another City's Light

I sit on the verge in the sunburnt light.

Nearby, a man coaxes music from an old guitar.

On the street, two boys kick a football

between the goalposts of a tourist's legs.

The city smells of salt water, car exhaust,

the shy perfume of sand.

I am a stranger here, and sometimes I think

pilgrimage, not citizenship, is man's rightful state.

I watch the sun drop into sea

like an overripe persimmon.

And when it's too dark to read the street signs,

I trace the cry of fruit bats back to my apartment

but do not flip the switch -

dark is not light's absence, but its breath.

And after all day in the city's glare,

I just need to breathe. 

Long, luminous breaths.

Untitled

(Pilgrimage)