The White Space
The forest calls out from its still centre to the leaf of the book that came from its heart, in the silent scream of a shared creative agony
Bashabi Fraser
The white space
Is like a still lake
Undiscovered in
An emerald grove,
Its silence borne
From the depths
Of a forest
From which
It was torn –
The screams
Of death
Unuttered
But smothered
In our factories
And gathered
Into pages
Waiting to be
Ruffled into
Ripples that will
Shatter the surface
And reveal
The secret
Of sighs
Of rustling leaves,
The shooting
Desires of tendrils,
The wisdom
Of the dark bark
And the ambition
Of branches
Waiting to find
A voice to spill
Over and fill
The white space.
Wall in > Wall out
Bashabi Fraser
Do good walls make good neighbours?
And what is good about walls unless
They belong to my home
And cocoon me in against the elements,
Keeping me storm-free or unscorched,
Blanketed and private –
A space for me with my family,
Walls that stand between dignity
And life on the pavement.
But stand them up to embody
The shadow line of a political border,
Something that signifies the Other
As the intruder -
Walls that form the rampart
Of empire, of cold war, of occupation –
And create the enemy
Who is shut out, and cannot,
And definitely, should not impregnate it,
Shell it, crack it or cross it
Even if his brother lives
Or his farmland lies, or his mother’s grave,
And his fishing river and playmate tree
Exist beyond what he must see
As the territory of his enemy.
So while walls shut out
Suicide bombers, harvesters, employees
Of the starving free, they shut in
The wall-builder who cements fear
In brick and stone, in suspicion born
Of segregation that grows
Without association with the Other -
The unknown face of the foe
Which, if he had known intimately,
Could have removed walls from minds,
Discovering bonds in human kind
Instead of creating terror zones.
This Border
Bashabi Fraser
Can shadow lines on the earth’s surface divide language and literature, rituals and customs, rivers…and memories?
There was a time when you and I
Chased the same butterfly
Climbed the same stolid trees
With the fearless expertise
That children take for granted
Before their faith is daunted
Do you remember how we balanced a wheel
Down dusty paths with childish zeal
Do you remember the ripples that shivered
As we ducked and dived in our river
Do you remember what we shared
Of love and meals, and all we dared
Together – without fears
Because we were one
In all those years
Before we knew that butterflies
Were free to share our separate skies
That they could cross with graceful ease
To alight on stationary trees
On either side of this strange line
That separates yours from mine
For whose existence we rely
Entirely on our inward eye
This border by whose callous side
Our inert wheel lies stultified
This border that cuts like a knife
Through the waters of our life
Slicing fluid rivers with
The absurdity of a new myth
That denies centuries
Of friendships and families
This border that now decrees
One shared past with two histories
This border that now decides
The sky between us as two skies
This border born of blood spilt free
Makes you my friend, my enemy.
