The Boys Who Live on Street #6

March 23, 2009 The boys in this photo live on Street #6 near my office. I see them rough-housing and tumbling in the street in the morning when I come to work. One day, I couldn't resist. I got out of the car and asked them if I might take their photograph. The tallest boy smiled willingly; his playmates were reticent. Soon three old men gathered on the sidelines to orchestrate the moment. It was not clear if the old men were related to the boys, but regardless of bloodlines, they wielded authority over the children as they clucked and hissed and snapped their fingers to get the boys to pose.

Some who have seen this photo have remarked on the sad expressions on the faces of the boys. That surprised me. I think the serious expressions were affected in deference to the formal nature of the portrait. Most mornings when I see these boys playing, they are smiling and laughing and hugging each other.

Greetings from Kabul

March 9, 2009 I am a Templeton woman. My grandfather, John Wesley Templeton, was one of seven children – six boys and one girl – who grew up in a rough-and-tumble household in Palo Alto, California with strict parents who kept a bottle of whiskey in the home “for medicinal purposes” only.

My mother was the only child of John and Lorraine Templeton. My great-uncle, Dink Templeton, a 1920 Olympics gold medalist with the U.S. rugby team, and his wife, Cathy, had two daughters: Jean and Robin (Binnie). Between them, Jean and Binnie have 8 children. Those 8 children, including Robin and Marti, Jean’s daughters, are my second cousins.

It has only been later in life that Robin and Marti and I have discovered each other as cousins and as friends, and I count myself lucky to have these two amazing women in my life. Both are artists. Robin’s medium is the written word. She is a novelist and a poet and a teacher. Marti paints extraordinary canvasses, filled with vibrant worldly images, both material and ethereal.

Last week, Robin was selected to read an original poem at the 27th annual Santa Cruz [California] Celebration of the Muse. I asked her if I could share the poem she wrote and she agreed. Her writing reminds me of the power of words to move and inspire.

With love and thanks, Robin, I share your poem here.

(for Ann and her Afghan Sisters- tashakor!)

Greetings from Kabul!

I AM FINE! my cousin Ann writes.

She is working in Afghanistan,
trying to bring some order to the country.
I write progress reports, she says.

Shuttered in a pink guest house,
built by a drug lord, with Persian rugs,
marble floors, she’s grateful for the Afghan cook
who prepares American cuisine,
for the private bathroom with a hot shower.

I can’t go outside on foot, at all.
Every Friday, I go to town
in an armored truck
with a driver and bodyguard.

Children sell gum in the streets.
Donkey carts mix with taxis.
Women in burkas beg on the corners,
mingle with prostitutes, also in burkas,
their fingernails colored-coded.

I express my fears reluctantly.
She knows what I’m thinking:
Rocket attacks, kidnap, rape, beheadings.

I’m not afraid.
Wherever you live,
circumstances quickly
become the norm.

She and I share a matriarchal bloodline
have sought the edge most of our lives.
Lately, mine blunts as hers sharpens,
a bone-handled paradigm.

She asks for photographs of my three grandsons,
to hang in office, to remind her of home.
I imagine their faces adorning her wall,
worry what passersby will think of these fair, All-American boys.

She insists we only hear the bad news.
I’m trying to raise money
for my friend Humaira Haqmal.
who drives the Taliban-controlled district
to Kabul every day to teach at the law school.
Humaira works with the Afghan Sisters Movement.

I stumble on spelling Afghan.
The “h” unsettles me.
Is this the first time I’ve written the word?

I am going to raise money for Humaira, my cousin vows.
I am going to write about these Afghan women.

Humaira, Humaira, of an arranged marriage,
who is raising six children,
has registered 600 women
for the August election.

August election? Where have I been?

My cousin is keen
on the incoming 17,000 American troops.
I remember her as a pacifist,

imagine the juxtaposition
of her carefully placed head scarf
and the carefully placed body guard.

I love the Afghan people.
I love the city of Kabul.

Soft rain taps the roof.
I email Ann at midnight
from my warm bed,
my husband snoring softly beside me.
I think of her friend Humaira,
stopped at a roadblock,
wonder what she is wearing,
how she speaks to the soldiers.

Tashakor
Thank you

--Robin Somers March 7, 2009

Kabul, the most remote of capitals

March 4, 2009 From James Michener's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Caravans.

We stayed there in the snowy moonlight for some time, alone on the edge of an ancient city with the Hindu Kush rising to our left and the immensity of Asia all about us: to the east the Khyber Pass, to the north the Oxus River and the plains of Samarkand, to the south the bazaars of Kandahar and the limitless deserts of Baluchistan, and to the west the strange lake that vanishes in air, and the minarets of Shiraz and Isfahan. It was a moment of immensity in which I sensed the hugeness of Central Asia, that semi-world with a chaderi over its face.... It was the smell of frozen fields, biting on the nostril, the aroma of the bazaar, great and filthy even in the night, and the clean, sweet smell of pine trees that hid behind garden walls. Those were moments I shall never forget, when the vastness of Asia... was borne in upon me and I wondered how I had been lucky enough to draw an assignment in Kabul, the most remote of capitals.