Letters // Barua -- November 20, 2012

MY LETTER TO YOU//Thomas Green

I am writing this letter

Sending it off to you

I still have things to say

And do not know what else to do.

You’ve left me alone

For such a long time now

Sometimes I miss you so much

But you are not around now.

So I sit down and I write.

I write this letter to you.

Life is like a roller coaster

It has high highs and precipitous lows

At times I need to talk to you

To share this ride with you as I go.

You took me on such a high ride

Our experience so strong remains mostly untold.

You gave me a love that was just beginning

A thing growing strong, with much room to grow.

Starting from near ground

We traveled together up and up to behold

the spiraling enchantment we enjoyed

Together our love uncontrolled.

Down that exciting track

Who would have pondered or could have known

You would be taken away in a flash

so sudden and yet so silent it was

I knew not where you had flown.

So I sit down and I write.

I write this letter to you.

Once I knew you were gone

I could hardly lift my head and cope

Knowing that you were no longer there

sharing this ride we had so much hope .

Now that we can no longer be together.

So sit and  I write to you this letter

Though there will be nowhere to post

For you are in God’s hands,

My dreams and memories,

In my heart you do reside the most.      

DEAR MR. JOHN DA SILVA//Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

You are lying in intensive care right now in Nairobi.

Your granddaughter Esmeralda just called to tell me your condition.

A heart attack: Worse, then better, than worse.

Be proud of her, John, her voice was calm and green,

Scrolling through the world inside your phone

Asking for nothing but prayer.

John, I don’t pray. I’m an American Jew in Diaspora

Far from Israel and its wincing policies. I heard the Dalai Lama

Speak once in India, but I was lurching and late to his lecture.   

When Esmeralda asked for prayers, though, John, I thought of you.

I saw you in my mind’s eye, as if thinking of you made you whole again.  

I thought of you cast in projector’s hum and light, speaking

To American students with the enthusiasm of a boy scout

Detailing histories long forgotten by even those who lived it.

There are Sultans roaming your mind, John, and architects,

Princes and ambassadors, kings and queens, imams and slaves

Tailors, traders, traitors. Your mind, full of labyrinths

Memorized and stitched into history through pen and ink.

A life in postcards, paintings, stamps, and signs.

Soldier of architecture, hero of history, Believer in beauty.

Your stories unravel like giant balls of yarn tangled in darkness,

One eye sharp and glistening, the other a marble of blues.

We have to remind you to take a breath, John, to breathe

In the present as you plunge into the past.

Do you remember when I saw you in Dar es Salaam?

Hours before your show at Alliance Francais, you sat

By the doorframe in a chair, looking at your life’s work

With the criticism of an ex-lover. You loved them all,

but still they were not perfect. You knew each painting

as if they were children named after beauty and forgetting.

How you love Stone Town, its rotting facades

Hidden histories, open secrets, wounds, mosques.

And how we love you, your tireless storytelling,

Your love for a good glass of red wine, your lit-up

Obsession with life and all there is to collect, name,

Claim, understand, and teach before a life is through.

The way you photograph decay, damage, destruction.

The way you stay on the image of an old Indian dhow

And talk about it as if it were the only thing that ever mattered.

The way you know each Sultan like blood brothers

Naming them, beard by beard. The way you gather glass

By the seashore, licking its salted story with a knowing tongue.

John, these hours are upon us now, stacked in a tower of worry.

We’re sending messages straight to your frail heart now, John,

Willing it to remember its strings attached to a wider love.

Stone Town’s collapsing still without you John, but you remind us

Of its beauty, and without beauty, there is nothing but history

Stripped of meaning. You taught me that, John, you showed

Me how to decipher time’s love letters carved in wood.

Consider this letter a prayer, then, John, that you’ll wake

From the pain of this particular moment to an incredible

Bloom of thanks for all you do to keep us close to the earth

Of birth and all that tumbles forward from it. Your limp,

Your eye, your magnificent hand. Your memory, your company,

All you do to stir what’s meant to surface.

With love & gratitude,

Mji Mkongwe

LETTER TO YOU//Mustafa Sharif

This letter is for you.
But not only you
Oh! It's for all of you
Who can read it and understand what I have to say

This letter is for you
You and your group
Who came to me the last season and the season before

Who wanted to win my trust
Did you value my trust?

This letter is for you
You and your group
If you want to come
Make sure you meet the terms
Or I will never let you in in the season to come