just keeps becoming more so

what all your actions tell me is that

there is no sanctity of life

that no number of bodies is too many

to sacrifice to visions of power & supremacy

that even the word human

means nothing and therefore

we are no longer speaking the same

language your tongue is forked

and cultivates only deceit because

the effort required to thoroughly

deceive oneself, day after day

is never ending

can never be satisfied

but must keep eating

eating up truth, chewing it into

an unrecognizable mass

poisoned with the saliva of greed

that makes it digestible

so that you can continue to live

in this world where

no one matters

except when they serve your purpose

every person, word, and concept

distorted to fit the

monomaniac pattern the

wallpaper of your life

21 October, 2024

How I understand it now, Nov. 1 2024

How simple it would be, to tip

over the edge, to suddenly exit the

rational, like Thaima pouring boiling water

onto herself, an act I understood but now more so,

I see the beyond-rational need to break

that barrier, to feel a physical pain

that meets the psychic horror

turning up one dial to meet the other

equalizing at least this —

the intensity of feeling

although it all stays incomprehensible

only nonsensical acts make sense

when all sense has been forsaken

the betrayal of reason

already under way,

surrounding – so that the self-inflicted

pain becomes one comprehensible

point of contact — one place

she can stand and say I feel this

for a reason

the pain is undeniable

I want to tell you, Thaima,

that I understand

that your act makes more sense

than anything else

in that blasted landscape

of your country

I wish that we

could wander through

a mind-scape together,

making sense

crafting meaning from found bits

of our hearts, lying

alongside the road like scraps

these treasures of knowing

like spools of string

that could tie up a harvest of

flowers and herbs,

secure a small bundle of

something essential

as we keep walking away from

the fires of collapsed empire

toward an unperceived realm

that our senses can trust

November 1, 2024

(Thaima is an Iraqi friend from Doha, who told me about the day she stood in front of the stove and poured boiling water onto her stomach. Her name is changed to protect privacy.)

On hearing Les Arrivants, August 11, 2024

Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar, July 2011 © Tracy Hudson

I sit apart, I close my eyes

the oud evokes the world where it has grown:

desert, olive grove, and mountain

firelight and tent and tea

the family extending out across the map

unreachable faces

that burn with love

that bend in prayer, or mischief

that focus on kneading of dough

or knotting rugs

guiding a donkey a taxi

a long trip alone on a subway

the scent of olive oil

the promise of shared food

remote dreams

that are not complicated

just a teapot, passed around

a circle of faces, warm

even if they all reflect pain

it is a circle that holds in warmth

the tune encircles this vision

ignites the fire that feeds

that bakes bread

sears meat of goat

— not the inhuman fires that

engulf children… schools…

families in shelter —

the hearth fire, creative,

perpetual gift

the music sings this

the drumming gives this

fire promise

There, there it is — the rivulet

of sorrow that speaks peace

– you hold home like a flame in the hand,

cupped around the pick,

speaking dreams into the hollow of rounded wood

rolling out the endless weaving, the ever-changing story

I close my eyes. I listen.

Doha, Qatar, December 2008 © Tracy Hudson

Three Musicians in Montréal: Abdul-Wahab Kayyali - Oud, Hamin Honari - Percussion, Amichai Ben Shalev - Bandaneon

Listen: Les Arrivants: Burkaan

One hundred forty days

Imagine just one bomb hitting your house. Just one, one time breaking the roof and part of the wall and it’s so loud you can’t even understand it and the whole place shakes so suddenly you fall off chair or bed or feet and if you’re close to the bombed part you fall almost out of the house because a huge chunk of your house is just gone, suddenly, everything you were keeping in it, whether pantry or kitchen or bedroom or library - that chunk of your life is ripped away, and if you are very lucky then no family members are killed or trapped underneath. If you are lucky you can still run and head south where they told you to go never mind what is south just go along with everyone else running away from home, from everything you made and kept and loved because it’s better than being bombed and at what point did this become impossible to imagine over here where I live and is this what we mean when we say unimaginable horror, or is it a way of refusing to imagine what has become an undeniable daily reality over there where you live, and we haven’t even talked yet about body parts and blood…

~ ~ ~

And here where we can only imagine

what is the arrangement of things

that is right?

Where is the repository for devotion

‘the sustained one note of obligatory

hope’

Which gestures can we make with

arms and hands, what facial posture

will hold this fear that is so

physically distant yet right with us

now as a threat how to say

that which is not mine is mine

that pain horror

excruciating hope

is with me too

as a person in a body

vulnerable to fire, smoke, sharp

objects flung

as if at random

When you are bombed

it shakes the ground here

that we thought we could stand on,

that ground — ruptured

when you are bombed we are all

rendered more susceptible

to bombing

~ ~ ~

I stumble

on the nominally

level ground

of this life

because where how

a child is no child

the transubstantiation

of human into target

into debris that must be cleared

to realize a bleaching,

poisoned dream

If this is dream and hope to some

then how where why

human likeness

this presence of body mind thought

impossible

that we can share

if you will cover a child

in dirt and rubble in order to say

your child will live in so called

freedom?

my throat dries

my fingers crack

this pen is heavy

words are not

what I thought

heart shocked to stillness

Hoh rainforest, May 2023

where the hum of some unseen machine

and the river’s shushing voice converge

stands a wren – minute, Pacific,

proud as royalty on his perch

– an upraised branch,

acoustic center of this widened grove

your voice prevails

your message is supreme

in this the space and moment of your choosing

your own personal zip buzz and trill

proclaiming – or maybe just

giving voice to an idea, a thought,

a desire or will

or maybe all of these, maybe

your song scatters wishes

through the forest, sparkling

the grandeur of your heart

Rhododenron, from 5.21.22

Opening out

the beauty of structure

revealed in expansion

– the very color and texture

that speaks allure

is pressing my petals into receptivity.

My beauty makes me expand

my expansion shares my beauty

a crown of delight

rings my essence,

I dance in the wind.

1.9.2023

The tall madrona’s shape

more elegant than a spiral stair

her twisting, curved life

written by me, January 2023

to the stones on the beach

I want to say

like walking on jewels

— only jewels are not

that important to me,

and possibly not as unique

as the stones, which really

seemed to be speaking

stories to me in

unknown languages