Journey: desert tree
Whilst driving with my habibti (dear wife) and Aama (mother-in-law) through the gwenga toward the south coast of Bahrain, I was struck by the barrenness and sameness of the terrain. Impressively flat, seemingly endless and lifeless landscape of sand and blazing heat. But that was not the thing that got me.
All of a sudden the barren sameness was rudely interrupted by a little tree. This one little, daring tree standing nonchalantly on that sand as if it had no right to be there, and yet had every reason to be there. This was not so much a ‘how’ but ‘why not?’ moment, and I love ‘why not?’ moments. And at that very ‘why not?’ moment, i had a familiar feeling. And as soon as I had a pencil in my hand, the graphite scratched the papyrus, and awoke something.
This piece comes out of conversations with Alison; conversations with David and Chantelle; my impressions on CS4 work and situations arising out of their research process to an ongoing process of applying my poetic instincts to create a sense of language that helps me to engage with our shared endeavours of researching multilingually. Stimulated by sparks of inspiration in conversation or observation, as well as a slow burn in musing and digesting, it is as fun as it is challenging. With the thought of starting the first draft of the final script later this year, I am amazed that a year has already passed, but excited about what is slowly emerging. My creative process, and writing in particular, has undoubtedly been enriched by all the encounters and my own experimenting. I am enjoying both writing, performing and collaborating on multilingual poetry. I look forward to sharing more poetry with the other case studies, along similar lines.
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