How many words for blue are there
in your language? I answer this as if
I know – blue sky, blue feeling, blue
eye. I want to know the word for blue
in Swahili, in Russian, in Arabic.

I want to taste and breathe it, drink
from its tenderness and power. I wonder
if Gauguin understood blue differently
in Tahiti? I suspect that blue stretched his
mind and cast him out of the prism where
he knew the ache of too-blue.

And the Navaho? What does blue mean
to them? They live in the blue light of red
where shadows cannot bear the blackness
and so–and so, people of the desert
see Ravens in their true color, the blue-
black of all beginning.

by Dean LaTray and Persis Karim 3/1/17

Gather your friends, gather yourselves, every
breath of you is needed for the long
dark winter opening before you.
Your open eyes must open wider
to see the light piercing the small
crack in your broken heart.
turn toward those you love
and toward those you do not know
for never did we need a stranger’s
kindness more than in this instant.

(November 9, 2016)
by Persis Karim — for my fellow human beings everywhere