No Backing Out of That

September 2001

jp melville

Events of this month bring the world into a torrential blur.

Some pretty spectacular crashes into those buildings in America. Set the tone for the world to come. No backing out of that.

Yah, those guys had a hell of a ride.

Now we will be driven by fear.

The Renaissance is truly over and a new dark ages is upon us.

Expect no more discussion, only positions.

We will all wear masques.

Friendships obscured, lost in differences evolving to the irreconcilable.

Chasms between brothers.

For some, lives behind barred gates.

For others, wandering aimlessly in search of the unfathomable.

So… it is time to retreat into to the hills. For all the whimsy of humankind, let the retreat begin, to continue, to celebrate… life.

Our personal as individual and as clan are such smallnesses.

Let them go.

You know… on that fateful day…. off we went my family and team and colleagues in a convoy of white Volga cars and Mitsubishi trucks.

To some place called safety.

Ha!

Long story short, I lost my family, but not my kids, nor even their mom,

Who is still there in the world of love’s madnesses.

Nor did I lose Imishli.

Maybe I discovered how remarkably rare,

How profoundly impassioned confusion, re-fusion could be,

On the warm breasts and in the dark oiled eyes...

Memories of Afat and me.

Poems - JP Melville