Monday, July 31, 2006

huddle


The photo above is of some baby ducks that were floating about the bay on a Winter's day. They huddle to keep warm and to give each other protection, just as you imagine those family groups were doing in Qana.
I feel at a loss as to what to write and yet I want to write. This latest atrocity in Qana is beyond the words of a woman sitting typing from her peaceful home in Melbourne. My heart is crying for all those children and all the parents and relatives. I completely do not understand how these actions would secure anything except more suffering and pain. How could anyone conceive that the brutal action of war would help this region, make Irael more secure or as the Americans see it, aid the "War on Terror".
Here are some words from an Australian poet, Judith Wright, which seem somehow apt-

LANDSCAPES
To look at landscapes loved by the newly dead
is to move into the dark and out again.
Every brilliant leaf that lives by light
dies by its hold at last and desires earth's bed:
men and trees and grasses daily falling
made that veil of beauty for her. Slight
aeons of soil on rock, of grass on soil, of men
standing on the grass, can't hide her outcrops. Stone-
stone our mother locks in, tongueless, without feeling,
our far blind brothers, future and past who had no luck
and never was born. And now the newly dead
is lowered there. Now we weep for eyes whose look
is closed on landscapes loved, and at last known.

This poem probably resonates more with the reality of natural death but I will leave it up all the same.

Finally here is a link a recent article by Robert Fisk, -http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14271.htm who would have to be one of my favourite journalists. The website is also a very good news resource.
* If anyone out there in blogging land could give me advice as to how to put live links into text I would be very grateful!

3 comments:

scout said...

bobbing duckies!!! i love spring here when the mallards have their wee ones, who look like little yellow tennis balls.

and yes how horrible the recent civilian toll was.....art has it's definite place in tragedy, whether it be visual, literary or other mediums.

as for adding links.......go to your dashboard, click on 'change setting', then click on the 'template' tab.

scroll down until you see
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Links (there's h6 before and after 'links' in the code but it won't let me post it here)

then add a link using html, for instance:
li (in triangle paranthesis but again it won't let me do it here) Wild Dog Roadthen /li in triangle parenthesis.

click on 'preview' to make sure you've got it right, then hit 'save template changes' and republish your blog.

you may want to increase the font size of the links, so just add font size="-1" (enclosed in triangle parenthesis) before the h6Links /h6.....or "+1" pr whatever.

hope that's clear!!!

austin said...

Thanks scout! It is great to have your ongoing visitations. I have developed a new awareness of all things Canadian from our connection! Specially what is happening on the Indigenous front and Harper's girth.
The links that I cannot do are the ones in the text when you are writing. For example you will write about kd Lang and have a link in the text to the news article you are referring to? See you in cyberland.

scout said...

oh i see.....ok......say for instance you want to do a story on kd lang in the news.

you put your html code before her name , so it would be triangle-parentheis then http://www.cbc.ca/kdlang.july30.html followed by a "

you 'close the tag' with a reverse traingle parenthesis, then type her name, then do a triangle parenthesis with /a and the reverese parethesis.

if you want it to pop up as a seperate tag you do the link follwed by target, so:

http://www.cbc.ca/dklang.jluly30.html" target="_blank"

make sense? guess i could sub ( ) for the dumb triangle things or whatever you call them.

anyways, glad you enjoy harper's expanding girth. can't say i'm up on howard too much but saw the other day where he's going to run again. what are his chances?