Civilians
photographed in a damaged building in Syria's northern city of Aleppo
following a reported air strike by government forces on Monday: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP, 7 December 2015
Ah! no, not these!
These, who were childless, are not they who gave
So many dead unto the journeying wave,
The helpless nurslings of the cradling seas;
Not they who doomed by infallible decrees
Unnumbered man to the innumerable grave.
But those who slay
Are fathers. Theirs are armies. Death is theirs --
The death of innocences and despairs;
The dying of the golden and the grey.
The sentence, when these speak it, has no Nay.
And she who slays is she who bears, who bears.Alice Meynell (1847-1922): Parentage, from Later Poems (1902)
Russian aviation bombed the city of Aleppo: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 28 November 2015
Civilians photographed in a damaged building in Syria's northern city of Aleppo following a reported air strike by government forces on Monday: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP, 7 December 2015
Not a place to despair Aleppo: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 30 November 2015
Syria
Aleppo now: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 7 December 2015
People look at the devastation caused by a fire that broke out at slums in Kadivali area of Mumbai, India. Hundreds of homes were reportedly destroyed as fire tenders laboured to reach the source in the heavily congested area: photo by Raianish Kakade/AP, 7 December 2015
Pakistani women walk along a street on a foggy day in Lahore: photo by Arif Ali/AFP, 7 December 2015
French riot police push back protestors during a demonstration in front of the Grand Palais in Paris, France, on Friday: photo by Yoan Valat/EPA, 4 December 2015
#Idomeni, Greece: "We are not terrorists. We want peace. Thank you for your help. Let us go". Photo: Nasim_Lomani: image via Revolución Real Ya @RRYrevolucion, 28 November 2015
A woman stands in the remains of burnt out shacks following a devastating fire in the slums of Damu Nagar in the Kandiwali area, in Mumbai, India, Monday: photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA, 7 December 2015
Romanian special forces servicemen wait on a bus before the beginning of the national day celebrations in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday: photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP, 1 December 2015
French riot police push back protestors during a demonstration in front of the Grand Palais in Paris, France, on Friday: photo by Yoan Valat/EPA, 4 December 2015
Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader and candidate for the regional elections in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, speaks during a news conference in Lille, northern France after the far-right National Front (FN) made sweeping gains across France in a first round of voting on Sunday.: photo by Pascal Rossignol/Reuters, 7 December 2015
Sotheby's staff carry the painting ‘The Lock’ by John Constable. It is estimated to sell between £8-12 million at Sotheby’s London, Old Masters and British Paintings Evening sale on December 9: photo by Charlie Bibby/PA, 7 December 2015
A crow accompanies a group of Pakistani women as they walk along a street on a foggy day in Lahore: photo by Arif Ali/AFP, 7 December 2015
Thanks, Tom for Alice Meynell and her sense of history and its grim patterns. Maybe history is just a limited set of plot lines that get repeated because we can’t get beyond ourselves. We can’t think of anything else, so history starts to look like a forced march, a series of blows to the head and the heart, with pauses in between, where we try to get some living done.
ReplyDelete"...But those who slay/Are fathers...." : a single line that says it all, devastatingly. (I will look for Meynell
ReplyDeleteYour posts, Tom, continue to reflect a reality never captured in daily news.
"But those who slay
ReplyDeleteAre fathers. Theirs are armies. Death is theirs -- "
Thanks Tom for Alice Meynell and the reality check of these photos on this Tuesday morning -- all the news so grim, grim . . . .
That was it, precisely! I see that crow every morning.
ReplyDeleteDevastating. Thank you, Tom.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tom. Your posts have an all-seeing, global sweep---antidotes to the many false faces of corporate media.
ReplyDeleteGrateful to everyone for good words.
ReplyDeleteThe doubleness of meaning in the last line of the Meynell poem, created by the play on "bears", lifts it up into the realm of the philosophical, whatever that is, maybe, as 'twere.
"...so history starts to look like a forced march, a series of blows to the head and the heart, with pauses in between, where we try to get some living done."
However by the evidence not only from Lahore but from here, it seems the crows are managing well enough thank you very much, indeed thriving like weapons manufacturers in permanent wartime -- ignoring the jackhammers and monster garbage wagons and flashing green sheet lightning December storms, boldly diving and swooping through traffic in dark flocks for any scrap of carrion ejected from the speeding hearses on the freeway feeder. You've got to hand it to them.