Mir's dust has settled at a distance from her.

And the heart-what of it? What blind shape today?

The sword falls, Mir, and still you stare at her.

~

At a heated meeting yesterday evening. All sorts of accusations.."cultural imperialist".."you've insulted me" etc., etc. You sat and listened, unable to stop yourself smirking..at one stage nearly bursting out in laughter. Just a moment before everyone had somberly been making the point that the university should be about tolerance and pluralism. 

Later on, after the banging on tables and the refusals to speak someone said to me: if you want recognition, acclaim, then you must write, must publish. There is some truth in that. That, after all, is the game you're involved in. But it did make me think: recognition, by who and for what?

Who, exactly, do we want as a witness to our being? We want the gaze of an idol to fall on us, a reassuring false presence, a substitution of word and image, for we lack the strength for anything else.

It was love's strength that brought me to her land


~
There are no words, there are no bridges. No, there are words, there are bridges, but none this hour.

~

The betrayal of religion by the anti-religious is boring (Charlie). The castigation of the mullah and shaikh, the rich and the powerful, by a Muslim is a form of loyalty. 

'His [the shaikh's] heart lunges and grasps: the most openness he can manage is lust'

That we lunge, that we grasp..and for what?