the moment of stillness
Email from the sheikh.
The sheikh is an acquaintance I met at a poetry festival a few years ago.
I have kept in touch as my contribution to world peace.
Seriously though.
I had this notion. A notion that I have to come out of my comfort zone and cultivate contact with Muslim people. I feel it's a sort of duty. To at least be open to such contact.
It hasn't exactly come easy to me, as some of you who have thrilled to my analysis of middle eastern politics will be aware.
But me and the sheikh have stayed in touch.
Not friendship exactly.
No, I'd recognise friendship.
What it is, is what it is.
So here we are.
Yes, yes I know. Sometimes it seems I'm megalomaniacally convinced that the fate of humanity depends on me, my poetry, and my choice of internet penfriends.
Messianic complex indeed.
Truth be told bold readers, you don't know the half of it.
But I digress.
I don't for a second think the sheikh is my friend.
But sometimes when you've talked to someone on level terms it's harder to hate them blindly.
Today's email contained a single sentence.
It read:
"I hope the Irish will behave with honour in the coming time."
When I read it, I sat in the stillness of my office for long moments. Outside swallows were flitting above the garden of my father. I could hear children playing on the avenue. The evening sun dallied on a throne of gold behind the trees.
Is he trying to warn me?
What on earth are they planning?
Is this thing over or is it just warming up?
The sheikh is an acquaintance I met at a poetry festival a few years ago.
I have kept in touch as my contribution to world peace.
Seriously though.
I had this notion. A notion that I have to come out of my comfort zone and cultivate contact with Muslim people. I feel it's a sort of duty. To at least be open to such contact.
It hasn't exactly come easy to me, as some of you who have thrilled to my analysis of middle eastern politics will be aware.
But me and the sheikh have stayed in touch.
Not friendship exactly.
No, I'd recognise friendship.
What it is, is what it is.
So here we are.
Yes, yes I know. Sometimes it seems I'm megalomaniacally convinced that the fate of humanity depends on me, my poetry, and my choice of internet penfriends.
Messianic complex indeed.
Truth be told bold readers, you don't know the half of it.
But I digress.
I don't for a second think the sheikh is my friend.
But sometimes when you've talked to someone on level terms it's harder to hate them blindly.
Today's email contained a single sentence.
It read:
"I hope the Irish will behave with honour in the coming time."
When I read it, I sat in the stillness of my office for long moments. Outside swallows were flitting above the garden of my father. I could hear children playing on the avenue. The evening sun dallied on a throne of gold behind the trees.
Is he trying to warn me?
What on earth are they planning?
Is this thing over or is it just warming up?
posted by heelers | 3:04 AM
2 Comments:
I do LOVE an ambiguous message. There's nothing quite like it for whetting the cerebral appetite.
Perhaps he is fearful.
Perhaps he is talking about something else. G8 for example.
Perhaps it is some standard Sheikh type salutation.
How fascinating. And how flattering that he assumes you speak for your whole nation.
But then perhaps you do....?!?
Of course the Irish will conduct themselves honorably.
I hope he's not one of those who's expecting the end time to begin at any moment (for example, to begin when Iran drops the bomb.)
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