SIGH -- OR, SAYANG -- POETICS

Unavoidable. Had company this weekend and we couldn't help but spend too much of the weekend glued to CNN's coverage of the Middle East. Thus, much empathy for Ernesto who says this:

The hay(na)ku seduced me into a constant translation of my reality into numbered stanzas; the form offered me a channel of exploration for my own relationship with languages, especially English and Spanish, but also French and even Latin. In other words, the hay(na)ku has represented for me, so far and since early 2005, the best manner of translating the hurting, fragmentary "essence" of my actual experience of reality.
...
The way I see the world, humankind is rapidly devolving into a barbaric, alienated, imbecile species. I still think that only art could save us from absolute catastrophe.

*****

I feel empathy, even as Dante's Purgatorio is a source for optimism...