Month: March 2026

Nourishment for the soul – not escapism …

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Much needed daily nourishment for my soul in this cruel and violent world of ours. Poets are guardians of an important source of healing and inspiration. Pure alchemy.

Willow by Anna Akhmatova

And I grew up in patterned tranquility,

In the cool nursery of the young century.

And the voice of man was not dear to me,

But the voice of the wind I could understand.

But best of all the silver willow.

And obligingly, it lived

With me all my life; it’s weeping branches

Fanned my insomnia with dreams.

And strange! – I outlived it.

There the stump stands; with strange voices

Other willows are conversing

Under our, under those skies.

And I am silent … As if a brother had died.

Sunbeam by A.A.

I pray to the sunbeam from the window –

It is pale, thin, straight.

Since morning I have been silent,

And my heart – is split.

The copper on my washstand

Has turned green,

But the sunbeam plays on it

So charmingly.

How innocent it is, and simple,

In the evening calm,

But to me in this deserted temple

It’s like a golden celebration,

And a consolation.

Anna Akhmatova 1889 – 1966

‘A young writer said of the two greatest Russian woman poets of the C20th: Tsvetaeva was a poet who had no paradise.Akhmatova had paradise.’ We can agree with this assessment, but A’s paradise is that of a person under severe trial – the paradise of a great C20th prophet. Philip McDonagh, poet and Irish ambassador to Russia 26.06 2010.

15 March 2026 … A Sunday when I remember my Mother, Margaret, and Elen and Mary, my grandmothers, I remember the mothers of Gaza and Iran.

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Iranian author and editor-in-chief of the New Vision Center for Strategic Studies in Iran, Mohammad Ali Sanoubari, has produced a striking piece of art called “The Last Supper” that depicts the downtrodden children of Gaza (2024). 

This Mothering Sunday we should also remember the girls and teachers killed on the 28 February at the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building in Iran. Officers at the USA Central Command created the target coordinates for the strike using obsolete data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. MSM reports that the primary school had clear visual indications that it is an educational facility, including colourful murals on the walls and small sports playing fields – both visible in some satellite imagery. To us, the pupils are just names. To their parents they were’ everything’:

Ana Dehqani, 8 years old

Fatemeh Salari, 34 years old

Reza Habashian, 7 years old

Arya Bahadori, 9 years old

Ali Asghar Zaeri, 8 years old

Zahra Bahrami, 7 years old

Ahmad Soltani, 8 years old

Hamed Par-ashegh-nezhad, 7 years old

Fatemeh Yazdan-panah, young girl, age unknown

Mahdis Nazari, 7 years old

Athena Chamani-nezhad, 6 years old

Amirghasem Zaeri, 7 years old

Fatemeh Dorazehi, 10 years old

Arad Ahmadizadeh, 8 years old

Saman Karimzadeh, 7 years old

Fatemeh Shahdadi, age unknown

Nadia Shahmiri, 9 years old

Parham Ranjbari, 9 years old

Mahmoud Gholamyani, 35 years old

Fatemeh Rahdar, 10 years old

Amir-Hassan Rasouli, 8 years old

Zahra Behrouzi, 8 years old

Mohammadhatam Raisi, 10 years old

Asna Raisi, 12 years old

Benyamin Jangjou, 8 years old

Mohammad-Sadra Zarei, 8 years old

Maryam Pazark, 10 years old

Liana Mohammadi, 7 years old

Mandana Salari, 29 years old

Sara Shayesteh, 5 years old

Zoha Pasand, 8 years old

Esra Zakeri, 9 years old

Salma Zakeri, 6 years old

Fatemeh Taherifard, 29 years old

Zahra Ansari, 7 years old

Fatemeh Fadavi, 10 years old

Mahna Zarei, 2 months old

Athareh Zarei, 10 years old

Alireza Zarei, 9 years old

Mohammadreza Shahsavari, 8 years old

Samira Basarde, 38 years old

Ehsan Saleminia, 6 years old

Fatemeh Zahra Karimi, 7 years old

Zeynab Bahrami, 10 years old

Mohammad Shah-dousti, eight years old

Reza Barani, seven years old

Athena Ahmadzadeh, 10 years old

Khadijeh Darvishi, 9 years old

Roqayyeh Karimi, 42 years old

Reza Ranjbar, 6 years old

Marzieh Bashiri-far, 38 years old

Mohammad-Mehdi Chegini, 10 years old

Mohammadian Bahrami, 17 years old

Ali-Akbar Karyani Pak, 8 years old

Hananeh Mehdikhah, 7 years old

Fereshteh Sangarzadeh, 44 years old

Mohammad-Ali Karyani Pak, 7 years old

Parsa Mokhtari-nasab, 12 years old

Arina Arab-Kish, 8 years old

Makan Nasiri, 12 years old

Esra Farahi-Zadeh, young girl, age unknown.

A mother from Gaza, Summer 2025

… She took Jerusalem

Captive, a willing captive, by delusive

                                   arts impell’d

to worship Urizen’s Dragon form,

   to offer her own children

           upon the bloody Altar”.

From William Blake’s Four Zoas (Vala)