The Inner Valley

No Madonna and Child could touch Her tenderness for a son She soon would have to forget .. . The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea, Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there Had long ceased to care, but not this one: She held a ghost-smile between her teeth, And in her eyes the memory Of a mother’s pride .. . She had bathed him And rubbed him down with bare palms. She took from their bundle of possessions A broken comb and combed The rust-colored hair left on his skull And then—humming in her eyes—began carefully to part it. In their former life this was perhaps A little daily act of no consequence Before his breakfast and school; now she did it Like putting flowers on a tiny grave. ******* ✍ Chinua Achebe (Ogidi, Nigeria Protectorate, 16 No vember 193 0 ~ Boston, Massachusett s, 21 Mar ch 2013).

Destructivity is the result of an unlived life. What cannot grow up grows down — nails and hairs of the beard into the flesh, unrequited desires calcifying our blood vessels, envy changing into ulcers, sadness into lice, dirt into flies. We are always, in a way, wandering knights; we are always looking for what to fight for and against, whom to hate with a just hatred. This unlived life is like a boiling water pot in our hands which we hurry to put away, and there is no time for anything else, and we are angry at all who sit quietly around the kitchen table and talk about Erich Fromm and that destructivity is the result of an unlived life. ******* ✍ Jaan Kaplinski ( Tartu, Estonia, born 22 January 1941). ◙ Artwork: William Kurelek

Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied, Go also to the nerve-racked, go to the enslaved-by-convention, Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors. Go as a great wave of cool water, Bear my contempt of oppressors. Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds. Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis, Go to the women in suburbs. Go to the hideously wedded, Go to them whose failure is concealed, Go to the unluckily mated, Go to the bought wife, Go to the woman entailed. Go to those who have delicate lust, Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted, Go like a blight upon the dulness of the world; Go with your edge against this, Strengthen the subtle cords, Bring confidence upon the algae and the tentacles of the soul. Go in a friendly manner, Go with an open speech. Be eager to find new evils and new good, Be against all forms of oppression. Go to those who are thickened with middle age, To those who