Start with 'Farewell'

I know it is an odd way to start a blog, leave alone one on global politics and economics, with a poem titled 'Farewell', one of my most favorite poems.



'Farewell' appears in Agha Shahid Ali's The Country Without a Post Office. The poem reflects the author's angst over Kashmir's desolation - once a paradise, now a Hades.



Farewell



I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:
Exquisite ghost, it is night.

The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves.
It is still night. The paddle is a lotus.
I am rowed - as it withers - toward the breeze which is soft as
if it had pity on me.

If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn't
have happened in the world?

I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You can't forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.

There is everything to forgive. You can't forgive me.

If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not have been possible in the world?



In the last two days there have been massive problems with the Blogger service; hope it all sorts out soon.