In the Presence of Absence Print

“No matter how near you come, you will remain distant. No matter how often you are killed, you will live. So do not think that you are dead there, and alive here. Nothing proves this or that but metaphor. Metaphors that teach beings the play of words. Metaphors that form a geography from a shadow. Metaphors that will gather you and your name. So ascend with your people, higher and farther than what the myths have prepared for you and me. Write yourself, the history of your heart, from the moment Adam was struck with love, until the resurrection of your people. And write, yourself, the history of your kind, from the time you borrowed the sea's rhythm and manner of breathing, until your return to me alive. You lie before me, like a rhyme that cannot carry the rush of my words. I elegize and I am the elegized. Be me so I can know you! Rise up so I can carry you! Come near so I can know you! Go far away so I can know you! Be a child again. Teach me poetry. Teach me the rhythm of the sea. Return to words their initial innocence. Give birth to me and take me back to a world before meaning, so I can embrace you on the grass. Do you hear me? A world before meaning. So sleep peacefully, peacefully if you can Sleep peacefully in your words and dream that you are dreaming Sleep as peacefully as possible I will ward off mosquitoes crocodile tears and friends who loved your wounds but abandoned you when you made your cross a writing desk Sleep quietly at your side sleep quietly I will guide your dreams I am alone as you are alone at this hour The earth is lofty lofty as thoughts The sky is a metaphor, like the poem Blue, green, white White White White” -Mahmoud Darwish The artwork has been inspired from Hong Kong street photography by Fan Ho.