Notes On Arrival And Departure

SEPTEMBER LETTERS Dear Marjan, Blind lion, face-scarred, rib-thin, pacing the bars of your rusty cage. And Donatella, dear old bear, snout-wound suppurating from the sword-slash of a Taliban, did you not hear? The North American experts have been called in. Hollywood mobilizes its tax-deductible donations. Once again our better inclinations have been misguided, abused. Other keepers are flown in, deals made with other zoos. Whose fault that two animals are front-page news, while the orphans are so numerous they remain anonymous? Dear Mammals, what was unbearable has become the way things are. The Buddha is blasted to gravel, and we must make sense of an airplane becoming flame against the sharp hip of a building. Some try simply to recall the name of a bear O Donatella! who once raised her broad palms in the air and solemnly danced for the children of Kabul, girls clapping boldly next to their brothers, the sun sharing its warm gifts with them all. Dear Mother, I am writing without feeling, having flown from France September 11th, your grandson bouncing in his caa-approved car seat, safe as milk. I'm sorry you worried we had been exploded those long hours you spent on hold, consulting with the airlines, having no idea where our plane was. We knew nothing until we began to descend and the pilot shared what he had kept for hours, where we were, where we would not be going. I thought, insanely, of buying a car, of never flying again. The airport was a mob of stranded tourists, hushed sobs. We were stuck till 3:00 a.m., your grandson mercifully conked out on the luggage. My lover comes from another country we would have to fly again, and soon. Just after 3:00, we got a room. Dear Meena, You began the women's revolution; you were its first martyr. I can neither forget you nor tell your story. I'll talk instead of myself, the modern, post-postmodern method, one soul that cannot ever know another, or imagine another's dreams. Where I live, one in four Canadians identifies as a poet. Where I live, nobody reads poetry. Thank you for the poem in which you wrote: I'm the woman who has awoken. You wrote: I've said farewell to all golden bracelets. And then you were shot. What did I care until I came that close to terror? I have dreamed a country of women living in rooms with blackened windows. I have imagined the blue cotton weave through which you viewed the world. Pictured the soul grown thin, thin, sunlight filtered through mesh. Pictured the bones' hollow piping,growing more porous each year, more troubled. Framed your sisters in their brightest moments, your sisters at home blooming in darkness. Remember? The way you flourished, nipples sweet as olives, buried alive when the gardener grew jealous. The way you fought: a burqa to conceal a camera, a poem to reveal a woman's war. Meena, forgive me for not writing before. Dear Isabelle, The pilot clears his throat, the overhead clicks dead. The child between us sleeps on. Fingertips touching, we lean back on our descent with nothing to say. We barely bounce on the runway. I lean into you, spiralling back in time, back to last week, climbing Mont Saint-Michel with our son swinging between us. Beneath the thin blue American Airlines blanket, when few words are necessary, we hold on. Isabelle, thank you for these eight years, so good so far, for giving your seat to theRose, Rachel is the author of 'Notes On Arrival And Departure ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780771075919 and ISBN 077107591X.