Leaving my home, traveling alone among strangers; being with my dear family and so soon saying good-bye and leaving their welcoming home; returning to my homey spaces; leaving home again (as I am doing today) and becoming absent from my house and garden… A lot of this kind of drama has been mine, this month. I will write more soon about this week’s travels. I have to say, though, that none of my leavetaking has felt as painful as a scorpion!
LEAVETAKING
On the morning they left
we said goodbye
filled with sadness
for the absence to come.
Inside the palanquins
on the camels’ backs
I saw their faces beautiful as moons
behind veils of golden cloth.
Beneath the veils
tears crept like scorpions
over the fragrant roses
of their cheeks.
These scorpions do not harm
the cheek they mark.
They save their sting
for the heart of the sorrowful lover.
-Ibn Jakh (1000 – 1050) Spain
Translated by Emilio Garcia Gomez & Cola Franzen
Gladsome Lights 
I always look forward to your travels and await your return!
LikeLiked by 1 person
A beautiful painting, Gretchen. Stirring. Inspiring.
The poem left me melancholy. I don’t want anyone to go. 🙂🥹
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, that’s because you are leaving your home only to return later unlike the unfortunate women of the poem who are being sent off to arranged marriages leaving behind family or as in “The Bookseller of Kabul” the man they really love but are not going to be allowed to marry because their family wants to marry them off to someone else for reasons of money or marrying off an older sister and the younger must be included in the deal. I not infrequently think of “The Bookseller of Kabul” based on a true story written by a European woman who lived there before the war years and got to know the family in question. Very poignant.
LikeLiked by 1 person