veridiction:s

Dear donors, friends, acquaintances,

It’s time for another short update on my network-funded journey to the Maldives and also the poems in the making.

Everybody is waiting to know the dates of the flights we booked. It’s May 4 to May 16. And the flight does not get me to The Maldives but to Sri Lanka, the last station before the islands! Donja will be in Sri Lanka the exact same period. Why this change in this already unorthodox and straggly campaign? … Donja had already booked her flight to bridge some time in Sri Lanka at the end of her fieldwork to write and rest. We were already thinking of including this Sri Lanka period into our window of encounter, as it would have been the days when Donja could spend time with me. A month ago, she had to spend two days in Colombo waiting for Maldivian officials to extend her visa. She had a bad time with men in Colombo however, something close to (verbal) harassment. This solidified our decision that I best accompany her in Sri Lanka. Now I couldn’t attach any Maldives’ time to this decision–a combi-ticket arrangement proved too expensive. Well, we will have just as much joy on the still quite tropical Sri Lanka island, but we still apologise if we have disappointed anyone with the choices we made in this very changeable configuration!

And yes, the poems. I have not forgotten about the poems. I’ve had signals telling me some donors were expecting them soon. Well, I’m not sure about the variations in which friends and family entertain beliefs about poem production, but they take time; in contrast to the old stereotype of words streaming down one’s pen after an epiphanous moment of craze or beauty, or beatific moment of ingenious epiphany. Take your pick. Those moment, although they are there, are rare. So, yes. I am writing approximately 33 poems (Donja keeps updating me about donors I didn’t know of). And you will have yours!

I won’t see the white sands of The Maldives or catch its warm winds, in the end. Neither will I fly over them with kerosine fueled monsterous angels as I suggested in the campaign JPG’s. But green Sri Lanka is green, nearby the islands, nearest by, and once we’re away from the largest urban areas (and the southwest which is overdressed by the tourist industry) it promises to nourish our joint sense for beauty. Who knows, maybe the ink of the poet and the student (Donja) will flow like water in that springy Earth spot. And I know just one thing that is more saturated than the green in Sri Lanka: our patience for the day we embrace.