Broken

Qalb: the turning of the heart is like the ploughing of a field; everything must be broken up; that which was silent must come to the surface...

'Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.'
---Leonard Cohen

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Fifteen minutes out of the 'green zone', down through dusty roads and past a small village where kids, half-clothed and scraggly, played with beaming faces despite the filth. The approach reminded Alex of California: there was something completely vacuous about the open roads and palm trees, dotted with extravagant mansions on either side. That's all before one enters this other place, a place whose very existence only serves to make what comes before it even more surreal

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Just after the village (and before the agricultural land he had come to survey) we saw a man, knee-deep in a ditch, digging away with an incredible amount of concentration. With a bent back and an intense look on his bearded, pointed face, my only thought was: I wish I'd brought my camera (so speaks the voice of the bourgeoisie). The lives of others: unimaginable. We have no understanding of, no connection with, the land-and a part of us thanks God for that. What do we see?

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A theoretician might 'think' of his contribution to economic growth; a theoretical mindset might muse on the tradeoffs between incentives and security or talk about universal human rights (or the lack thereof). But how many of us see this individual, at this particular time. Someone suffering, broken by fate, yet resolute

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We are among creatures but remain separate from all creatures

Just as, in 'rupak tala,' the first beat is also outside the pattern of counting

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----Mir Dard.