Out from Behind This Mask [To Confront a Portrait] – From BOOK XXIV. AUTUMN RIVULETS, LEAVES OF GRASS By Walt Whitman (Source: Project Gutenberg) 1 Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask, These lights and shades, this drama of the whole, This common curtain of the face contain’d in me for me, in you for…
Tools of resistance: a Musical Anthem and Graffiti from the Decade of Fire
I recently came across the lyrics of Resistiré, (30 artists in the contemporary video) in relation to my Spanish learning goal, a song that has been cast quite aptly as an anthem of Spain during these times of COVID-19. This 1960’s classic by Spaniards Ramón Arcusa and Manuel de la Calva of Dúo…
A solitary walk, the Crazy Horse of Mathias Duplessy and a shot of optimism
A solitary walk … It appears today, that the only thing certain is the uncertainty of the following day. But even so, in this time of a huge void in our social interactions, the accompanying ennui, anxiety and various other psychosomatic effects that seem to have surfaced, it got me thinking about hope and…
Locating spirit in community through sewing a straight line ======
The situation since January 2020 concerning Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was very dismal, especially for health workers that were in the midst of treating people infected with the novel corona virus (nCoV) or SARS-CoV-2. When the United States experienced an N 95 respirator crisis earlier this year, it was quite painful to see the…
A Kenyan Malaika, death, resurrection and life
It is Easter Sunday. In Pre-Viral times, the big stores employed a multitude of tempting stratagems which would have served as a reminder, as they usually did months in advance of any contemporary festival. The Easter Bunny on the fire truck yesterday also made it quite loud and clear, or this Sunday too would not…
Remembering, while on the precipice of change – Lockdown Essays
Tangled branches ~ DES A strange world it appears to be now, on the precipice of change. A few months hence, everything will perhaps be unrecognizable from what it has been before; the way we work, the way we relate, the way we live. At this point of time as a socially distant being, I…