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it's kinda like that
Sep. 11th, 2010 06:31 pmLenox Hill
by Agha Shahid Ali
(In Lenox Hill Hospital, after surgery, my mother said the sirens sounded
like the elephants of Mihiragula when his men drove them off cliffs
in the Pir Panjal Range.)
The Hun so loved the cry, one falling elephant's,
he wished to hear it again. At dawn, my mother
heard, in her hospital-dream of elephants,
sirens wail through Manhattan like elephants
forced off Pir Panjal's rock cliffs in Kashmir:
the soldiers, so ruled, had rushed the elephant,
The greatest of all footprints is the elephant's,
said the Buddha. But not lifted from the universe,
those prints vanished forever into the universe,
though nomads still break news of those elephants
as if it were just yesterday the air spread the dye
("War's annals will fade into night / Ere their story die"),
the punishing khaki whereby the world sees us die
out, mourning you, O massacred elephants!
Months later, in Amherst, she dreamt: She was, with dia-
monds, being stoned to death. I prayed: If she must die,
let it only be some dream. But there were times, Mother,
while you slept, that I prayed, "Saints, let her die."
Not, I swear to you, that I wished you to die
but to save you as you were, young, in song in Kashmir,
and I, one festival, crowned Krishna by you, Kashmir
listening to my flute. You never let gods die.
Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe
that would let me get used to a universe
without you. She, she alone, was the universe
as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die,
defying the Merciful of the Universe,
Master of Disease, "in the circle of her traverse"
of drug-bound time. And where was the god of elephants,
plump with Fate, when tusk to tusk, the universe,
dyed green, became ivory? Then let the universe,
like Paradise, be considered a tomb. Mother,
they asked me, So how's the writing? I answered My mother
is my poem. What did they expect? For no verse
sufficed except the promise, fading, of Kashmir
and the cries that reached you from the cliffs of Kashmir
(across fifteen centuries) in the hospital. Kashmir,
she's dying! How her breathing drowns out the universe
as she sleeps in Amherst. Windows open on Kashmir:
There, the fragile wood-shrines—so far away—of Kashmir!
O Destroyer, let her return there, if just to die.
Save the right she gave its earth to cover her, Kashmir
has no rights. When the windows close on Kashmir,
I see the blizzard-fall of ghost-elephants.
I hold back—she couldn't bear it—one elephant's
story: his return (in a country far from Kashmir)
to the jungle where each year, on the day his mother
died, he touches with his trunk the bones of his mother.
"As you sit here by me, you're just like my mother,"
she tells me. I imagine her: a bride in Kashmir,
she's watching, at the Regal, her first film with Father.
If only I could gather you in my arms, Mother,
I'd save you—now my daughter—from God. The universe
opens its ledger. I write: How helpless was God's mother!
Each page is turned to enter grief's accounts. Mother,
I see a hand. Tell me it's not God's. Let it die.
I see it. It's filling with diamonds. Please let it die.
Are you somewhere alive, Mother?
Do you hear what I once held back: in one elephant's
cry, by his mother's bones, the cries of those elephants
that stunned the abyss? Ivory blots out the elephants.
I enter this: The Belovéd leaves one behind to die.
For compared to my grief for you, what are those of Kashmir,
and what (I close the ledger) are griefs of the universe
when I remember you—beyond all accounting—O my mother?
by Agha Shahid Ali
(In Lenox Hill Hospital, after surgery, my mother said the sirens sounded
like the elephants of Mihiragula when his men drove them off cliffs
in the Pir Panjal Range.)
The Hun so loved the cry, one falling elephant's,
he wished to hear it again. At dawn, my mother
heard, in her hospital-dream of elephants,
sirens wail through Manhattan like elephants
forced off Pir Panjal's rock cliffs in Kashmir:
the soldiers, so ruled, had rushed the elephant,
The greatest of all footprints is the elephant's,
said the Buddha. But not lifted from the universe,
those prints vanished forever into the universe,
though nomads still break news of those elephants
as if it were just yesterday the air spread the dye
("War's annals will fade into night / Ere their story die"),
the punishing khaki whereby the world sees us die
out, mourning you, O massacred elephants!
Months later, in Amherst, she dreamt: She was, with dia-
monds, being stoned to death. I prayed: If she must die,
let it only be some dream. But there were times, Mother,
while you slept, that I prayed, "Saints, let her die."
Not, I swear to you, that I wished you to die
but to save you as you were, young, in song in Kashmir,
and I, one festival, crowned Krishna by you, Kashmir
listening to my flute. You never let gods die.
Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe
that would let me get used to a universe
without you. She, she alone, was the universe
as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die,
defying the Merciful of the Universe,
Master of Disease, "in the circle of her traverse"
of drug-bound time. And where was the god of elephants,
plump with Fate, when tusk to tusk, the universe,
dyed green, became ivory? Then let the universe,
like Paradise, be considered a tomb. Mother,
they asked me, So how's the writing? I answered My mother
is my poem. What did they expect? For no verse
sufficed except the promise, fading, of Kashmir
and the cries that reached you from the cliffs of Kashmir
(across fifteen centuries) in the hospital. Kashmir,
she's dying! How her breathing drowns out the universe
as she sleeps in Amherst. Windows open on Kashmir:
There, the fragile wood-shrines—so far away—of Kashmir!
O Destroyer, let her return there, if just to die.
Save the right she gave its earth to cover her, Kashmir
has no rights. When the windows close on Kashmir,
I see the blizzard-fall of ghost-elephants.
I hold back—she couldn't bear it—one elephant's
story: his return (in a country far from Kashmir)
to the jungle where each year, on the day his mother
died, he touches with his trunk the bones of his mother.
"As you sit here by me, you're just like my mother,"
she tells me. I imagine her: a bride in Kashmir,
she's watching, at the Regal, her first film with Father.
If only I could gather you in my arms, Mother,
I'd save you—now my daughter—from God. The universe
opens its ledger. I write: How helpless was God's mother!
Each page is turned to enter grief's accounts. Mother,
I see a hand. Tell me it's not God's. Let it die.
I see it. It's filling with diamonds. Please let it die.
Are you somewhere alive, Mother?
Do you hear what I once held back: in one elephant's
cry, by his mother's bones, the cries of those elephants
that stunned the abyss? Ivory blots out the elephants.
I enter this: The Belovéd leaves one behind to die.
For compared to my grief for you, what are those of Kashmir,
and what (I close the ledger) are griefs of the universe
when I remember you—beyond all accounting—O my mother?
it's kinda like that
Sep. 11th, 2010 06:31 pmLenox Hill
by Agha Shahid Ali
(In Lenox Hill Hospital, after surgery, my mother said the sirens sounded
like the elephants of Mihiragula when his men drove them off cliffs
in the Pir Panjal Range.)
The Hun so loved the cry, one falling elephant's,
he wished to hear it again. At dawn, my mother
heard, in her hospital-dream of elephants,
sirens wail through Manhattan like elephants
forced off Pir Panjal's rock cliffs in Kashmir:
the soldiers, so ruled, had rushed the elephant,
The greatest of all footprints is the elephant's,
said the Buddha. But not lifted from the universe,
those prints vanished forever into the universe,
though nomads still break news of those elephants
as if it were just yesterday the air spread the dye
("War's annals will fade into night / Ere their story die"),
the punishing khaki whereby the world sees us die
out, mourning you, O massacred elephants!
Months later, in Amherst, she dreamt: She was, with dia-
monds, being stoned to death. I prayed: If she must die,
let it only be some dream. But there were times, Mother,
while you slept, that I prayed, "Saints, let her die."
Not, I swear to you, that I wished you to die
but to save you as you were, young, in song in Kashmir,
and I, one festival, crowned Krishna by you, Kashmir
listening to my flute. You never let gods die.
Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe
that would let me get used to a universe
without you. She, she alone, was the universe
as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die,
defying the Merciful of the Universe,
Master of Disease, "in the circle of her traverse"
of drug-bound time. And where was the god of elephants,
plump with Fate, when tusk to tusk, the universe,
dyed green, became ivory? Then let the universe,
like Paradise, be considered a tomb. Mother,
they asked me, So how's the writing? I answered My mother
is my poem. What did they expect? For no verse
sufficed except the promise, fading, of Kashmir
and the cries that reached you from the cliffs of Kashmir
(across fifteen centuries) in the hospital. Kashmir,
she's dying! How her breathing drowns out the universe
as she sleeps in Amherst. Windows open on Kashmir:
There, the fragile wood-shrines—so far away—of Kashmir!
O Destroyer, let her return there, if just to die.
Save the right she gave its earth to cover her, Kashmir
has no rights. When the windows close on Kashmir,
I see the blizzard-fall of ghost-elephants.
I hold back—she couldn't bear it—one elephant's
story: his return (in a country far from Kashmir)
to the jungle where each year, on the day his mother
died, he touches with his trunk the bones of his mother.
"As you sit here by me, you're just like my mother,"
she tells me. I imagine her: a bride in Kashmir,
she's watching, at the Regal, her first film with Father.
If only I could gather you in my arms, Mother,
I'd save you—now my daughter—from God. The universe
opens its ledger. I write: How helpless was God's mother!
Each page is turned to enter grief's accounts. Mother,
I see a hand. Tell me it's not God's. Let it die.
I see it. It's filling with diamonds. Please let it die.
Are you somewhere alive, Mother?
Do you hear what I once held back: in one elephant's
cry, by his mother's bones, the cries of those elephants
that stunned the abyss? Ivory blots out the elephants.
I enter this: The Belovéd leaves one behind to die.
For compared to my grief for you, what are those of Kashmir,
and what (I close the ledger) are griefs of the universe
when I remember you—beyond all accounting—O my mother?
by Agha Shahid Ali
(In Lenox Hill Hospital, after surgery, my mother said the sirens sounded
like the elephants of Mihiragula when his men drove them off cliffs
in the Pir Panjal Range.)
The Hun so loved the cry, one falling elephant's,
he wished to hear it again. At dawn, my mother
heard, in her hospital-dream of elephants,
sirens wail through Manhattan like elephants
forced off Pir Panjal's rock cliffs in Kashmir:
the soldiers, so ruled, had rushed the elephant,
The greatest of all footprints is the elephant's,
said the Buddha. But not lifted from the universe,
those prints vanished forever into the universe,
though nomads still break news of those elephants
as if it were just yesterday the air spread the dye
("War's annals will fade into night / Ere their story die"),
the punishing khaki whereby the world sees us die
out, mourning you, O massacred elephants!
Months later, in Amherst, she dreamt: She was, with dia-
monds, being stoned to death. I prayed: If she must die,
let it only be some dream. But there were times, Mother,
while you slept, that I prayed, "Saints, let her die."
Not, I swear to you, that I wished you to die
but to save you as you were, young, in song in Kashmir,
and I, one festival, crowned Krishna by you, Kashmir
listening to my flute. You never let gods die.
Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe
that would let me get used to a universe
without you. She, she alone, was the universe
as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die,
defying the Merciful of the Universe,
Master of Disease, "in the circle of her traverse"
of drug-bound time. And where was the god of elephants,
plump with Fate, when tusk to tusk, the universe,
dyed green, became ivory? Then let the universe,
like Paradise, be considered a tomb. Mother,
they asked me, So how's the writing? I answered My mother
is my poem. What did they expect? For no verse
sufficed except the promise, fading, of Kashmir
and the cries that reached you from the cliffs of Kashmir
(across fifteen centuries) in the hospital. Kashmir,
she's dying! How her breathing drowns out the universe
as she sleeps in Amherst. Windows open on Kashmir:
There, the fragile wood-shrines—so far away—of Kashmir!
O Destroyer, let her return there, if just to die.
Save the right she gave its earth to cover her, Kashmir
has no rights. When the windows close on Kashmir,
I see the blizzard-fall of ghost-elephants.
I hold back—she couldn't bear it—one elephant's
story: his return (in a country far from Kashmir)
to the jungle where each year, on the day his mother
died, he touches with his trunk the bones of his mother.
"As you sit here by me, you're just like my mother,"
she tells me. I imagine her: a bride in Kashmir,
she's watching, at the Regal, her first film with Father.
If only I could gather you in my arms, Mother,
I'd save you—now my daughter—from God. The universe
opens its ledger. I write: How helpless was God's mother!
Each page is turned to enter grief's accounts. Mother,
I see a hand. Tell me it's not God's. Let it die.
I see it. It's filling with diamonds. Please let it die.
Are you somewhere alive, Mother?
Do you hear what I once held back: in one elephant's
cry, by his mother's bones, the cries of those elephants
that stunned the abyss? Ivory blots out the elephants.
I enter this: The Belovéd leaves one behind to die.
For compared to my grief for you, what are those of Kashmir,
and what (I close the ledger) are griefs of the universe
when I remember you—beyond all accounting—O my mother?
this is the part where I save the day
Mar. 20th, 2010 05:30 pmI am such a nerd. I want this:
http://www.myimportstore.com/viewProduct_ID_KH-14.htm
In other news, I am so fucking happy that I came back to Reed early. It was incredibly worth it. I am having so much fun hanging out with Dan and everyone else. I am beside myself with happiness. No time to go into detail now, though, working on an application for an internship...
[The subject is from Dan's awesome shirt, which he's letting me wear today.]
http://www.myimportstore.com/viewProduct_ID_KH-14.htm
In other news, I am so fucking happy that I came back to Reed early. It was incredibly worth it. I am having so much fun hanging out with Dan and everyone else. I am beside myself with happiness. No time to go into detail now, though, working on an application for an internship...
[The subject is from Dan's awesome shirt, which he's letting me wear today.]
this is the part where I save the day
Mar. 20th, 2010 05:30 pmI am such a nerd. I want this:
http://www.myimportstore.com/viewProduct_ID_KH-14.htm
In other news, I am so fucking happy that I came back to Reed early. It was incredibly worth it. I am having so much fun hanging out with Dan and everyone else. I am beside myself with happiness. No time to go into detail now, though, working on an application for an internship...
[The subject is from Dan's awesome shirt, which he's letting me wear today.]
http://www.myimportstore.com/viewProduct_ID_KH-14.htm
In other news, I am so fucking happy that I came back to Reed early. It was incredibly worth it. I am having so much fun hanging out with Dan and everyone else. I am beside myself with happiness. No time to go into detail now, though, working on an application for an internship...
[The subject is from Dan's awesome shirt, which he's letting me wear today.]
una salus uictis nullam sperare salutem
Feb. 12th, 2010 10:11 pmi made a tumblr. i'm sort of planning on putting up stuff that i find aesthetically pleasing in some way or another... but it'll probably just devolve into things i like in general.
http://backspacecentury.tumblr.com/
spring hall convert was already taken, and the person has nothing on their page. i am sad.
finished the aeneid today... it was so good! i like it very much. i also heard of "the faerie queene" for the first time, and i really want to read it haha.
maybe more later... i was planning on writing a real entry, and then things soured.
http://backspacecentury.tumblr.com/
spring hall convert was already taken, and the person has nothing on their page. i am sad.
finished the aeneid today... it was so good! i like it very much. i also heard of "the faerie queene" for the first time, and i really want to read it haha.
maybe more later... i was planning on writing a real entry, and then things soured.
una salus uictis nullam sperare salutem
Feb. 12th, 2010 10:11 pmi made a tumblr. i'm sort of planning on putting up stuff that i find aesthetically pleasing in some way or another... but it'll probably just devolve into things i like in general.
http://backspacecentury.tumblr.com/
spring hall convert was already taken, and the person has nothing on their page. i am sad.
finished the aeneid today... it was so good! i like it very much. i also heard of "the faerie queene" for the first time, and i really want to read it haha.
maybe more later... i was planning on writing a real entry, and then things soured.
http://backspacecentury.tumblr.com/
spring hall convert was already taken, and the person has nothing on their page. i am sad.
finished the aeneid today... it was so good! i like it very much. i also heard of "the faerie queene" for the first time, and i really want to read it haha.
maybe more later... i was planning on writing a real entry, and then things soured.
logos is the king of life
Dec. 13th, 2009 11:54 pmI was looking for a spaiku, and then I found a spaiku
and heaven knows I'm miserable now.
hehehe i just find this amusing. oh god, so much studying! finals! no time. had a lovely time playing never have i ever, though. can't wait to have no work for a month and see whittier yesssss. i will be so happy once my 4 finals in 3 days are over.
logos is the king of life
Dec. 13th, 2009 11:54 pmI was looking for a spaiku, and then I found a spaiku
and heaven knows I'm miserable now.
hehehe i just find this amusing. oh god, so much studying! finals! no time. had a lovely time playing never have i ever, though. can't wait to have no work for a month and see whittier yesssss. i will be so happy once my 4 finals in 3 days are over.
die fetten Jahren sind vorbei
Nov. 13th, 2009 09:17 pmi suddenly forgive benjamin curtis for leaving the secret machines. not only are they getting along fine without him, but his new band, school of seven bells, IS AMAZING! i've been interested in hearing them for a while now, but i haven't gotten around to it (i am so lazy/busy) until now when one of their songs came in the flavorpill mixtape. it's called "iamundernodisguise" and it is fantastic, i could just listen to it on repeat over and over again (and i did for a while this afternoon). now i have high hopes for the rest of their music, and am proud as well as aesthetically pleased to have their poster in my room (don't judge me, it's a really cool poster).
fun fact: according to lastfm, their name comes from "a mythical South American pickpocket training academy." haha.
not fun fact: i have missed them multiple times (told you i was interested) because they always play bars. gah.
now back to my german project... scheiße.
fun fact: according to lastfm, their name comes from "a mythical South American pickpocket training academy." haha.
not fun fact: i have missed them multiple times (told you i was interested) because they always play bars. gah.
now back to my german project... scheiße.
die fetten Jahren sind vorbei
Nov. 13th, 2009 09:17 pmi suddenly forgive benjamin curtis for leaving the secret machines. not only are they getting along fine without him, but his new band, school of seven bells, IS AMAZING! i've been interested in hearing them for a while now, but i haven't gotten around to it (i am so lazy/busy) until now when one of their songs came in the flavorpill mixtape. it's called "iamundernodisguise" and it is fantastic, i could just listen to it on repeat over and over again (and i did for a while this afternoon). now i have high hopes for the rest of their music, and am proud as well as aesthetically pleased to have their poster in my room (don't judge me, it's a really cool poster).
fun fact: according to lastfm, their name comes from "a mythical South American pickpocket training academy." haha.
not fun fact: i have missed them multiple times (told you i was interested) because they always play bars. gah.
now back to my german project... scheiße.
fun fact: according to lastfm, their name comes from "a mythical South American pickpocket training academy." haha.
not fun fact: i have missed them multiple times (told you i was interested) because they always play bars. gah.
now back to my german project... scheiße.
chemistry, how i love thee
Nov. 6th, 2009 12:11 amlet me count the ways. most recently: triacetone triperoxide, an explosive, has the common name "Mother of Satan" because of how fucking unstable it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triacetone_triperoxide
"It is one of the few explosives which remain explosive when wet or kept underwater."
"TCAP generally burns when ignited, unconfined, in quantities less than about 2 grams. More than 2 grams will usually detonate when ignited; smaller quantities might detonate when even slightly confined. Completely dry TCAP is much more prone to detonation than the fresh product still wetted with water or acetone."
YES.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triacetone_triperoxide
"It is one of the few explosives which remain explosive when wet or kept underwater."
"TCAP generally burns when ignited, unconfined, in quantities less than about 2 grams. More than 2 grams will usually detonate when ignited; smaller quantities might detonate when even slightly confined. Completely dry TCAP is much more prone to detonation than the fresh product still wetted with water or acetone."
YES.
chemistry, how i love thee
Nov. 6th, 2009 12:11 amlet me count the ways. most recently: triacetone triperoxide, an explosive, has the common name "Mother of Satan" because of how fucking unstable it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triacetone_triperoxide
"It is one of the few explosives which remain explosive when wet or kept underwater."
"TCAP generally burns when ignited, unconfined, in quantities less than about 2 grams. More than 2 grams will usually detonate when ignited; smaller quantities might detonate when even slightly confined. Completely dry TCAP is much more prone to detonation than the fresh product still wetted with water or acetone."
YES.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triacetone_triperoxide
"It is one of the few explosives which remain explosive when wet or kept underwater."
"TCAP generally burns when ignited, unconfined, in quantities less than about 2 grams. More than 2 grams will usually detonate when ignited; smaller quantities might detonate when even slightly confined. Completely dry TCAP is much more prone to detonation than the fresh product still wetted with water or acetone."
YES.
