November rain

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

NOVEMBER started with heavy rains and strong winds with Typhoon Rolly. Less than two weeks after, Typhoon Ulysses howled at dawn on the 12^th of November, like a madman, breaking the limbs of trees that forced the plants to kiss the wet ground, and made galvanized sheets fly like lost magic carpets cruising under a surprisingly bright night sky. I watched and listened to the raging howl of Ulysses, that eased somewhat with the soothing voice of Giulia Falcone singing, uncannily, Daniel Balavoine’s SOS d’un terrien en détresse (SOS of a man in distress), which I listened to from the timeline of someone requesting me as a friend on Facebook. On the basis of her calm voice, and the variety of harmonies shared on that particular timeline, I accepted the friend request, knowing that if a person can acknowledge the quality of her voice, then the person behind could only be gentle, an educated guess, from the discipline of thin-slicing, as propounded in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.

This year, November is a month of heavy rains. It brought a lot of suffering to many that it has become synonymous with pain. Perhaps, Novembers are really like that, even the song November Rain sung by Guns N’ Roses, had a melancholic strain to it. Perhaps, too, melancholy has a way of eliciting deeper connections, new meanings, new beginnings. In the chaotic rhythm of the rain, there is music, there is poetry, and absolute calm.

 

Flood (20 November 2020 5:26 a.m.)

The flood flows to the moon

and back to the river

deep inside of me

gentle ripples

in the silence

wordless lyrics

to a melody

 

Darkness (21 November 2020 7:10 p.m.)

In its deep darkness

the sky makes stars dance

the moonbeams pierce

the skin, slits open the heart

and for some moment, linger

till dawn, when everything recedes

as the light comes

and snatches away

the magic of the dance

 

Silence knows (25 November 2020 4:43 a.m.)

I heard you whisper

an offer, softly,

to the ears of my heart

in the silence

that already knows

the answer

 

(In reply to “The Soul of Rumi”)

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