I think it is not necessary what "earth" means, for me I think the most important is the connection a being has with soul that embodies it. It is this connection I strive to find meaning for, therefore the immaterial, space, gravity, air and all what leaves in it is what I think explains me as being. If I were to lose striving of redefining this connection then I am lost, therefore cannot function as an artist or to be able critically question what exist in the space of which the earth acts as a platform and a metaphor.

"They walk past. Their feet knew no relationship with the earth, they dragged on.
The land they knew refuses to embrace them and the people it knew refuses to embrace it.
They are like an uprooted tree from the soil.
A tree that had lost all its sisterly leaves and flowers that once blossomed,
The brotherly branches and suckets
That once mushroomed from its trunk, the cousinly twigs, shrubs,
The enemy weeds that grew around it and its strong lover, the soil"


From "For the Acquaintance of my Mind" 2007 Anawana Haloba

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Just added the text as a reference of the quote above.

FOR THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY MIND

Were they without names? Were they without names?
We don't know who they are. We have been watching them.
Will they make it? I wish they could fly. I wish I knew their names.
We have heard of them, we have been watching them for too long.
We don't know their names yet we have watched them for too long.
We have known of them and about them.

I keep asking myself what their names would be. I keep watching them as
You watch them. Watched as they walked past, a cloudy dust is created from the
Troubled relationship of their feet and the earth their ancestors walked hundreds
Of years before them, producing a stormy and thunderous silence that penetrates the fibers of my mind.
Will we miss them? Will you miss them? Will I miss them?
Will we remember them, will you remember them, I will remember.

I scream out to ask for their names and reach out my hand.
They shout back to me. A sound of many names, a sound that sounded like a song of despair.
The names that where no more names.
The names spoken out without desire to exist, the names that have become meaningless.
The names that became no names.
They became the unnamed, those without names.

They walk past. Their feet knew no relationship with the earth, they dragged on. The land they knew refuses to embrace them and the people it knew refuses to embrace it. They are like an uprooted tree from the soil.
A tree that had lost all its sisterly leaves and flowers that once blossomed, the brotherly branches and suckets that once mushroomed from its trunk, the cousinly twigs, shrubs, the enemy weeds that grew around it and its strong lover, the soil.

They keep on walking; their shoulders bent down and troubled by the weight of their head borne.
Their skeleton frame seems not to understand its relationship with the frail muscles it's carrying.
Their faces are like that of a man who has lost his soul to a strong witch that only exists in the darkest underworld of death.
Captured and hidden under a huge rock that could only be moved by a white Knight.

The only relationship they know is that of their skeletoned hands and the bundles they are holding.
They cling on like a corpse that died holding a treasure from undiscovered worlds.

They walk on with only what they hold.
Their memories have turned into layers of foggy nights.
Their eyes and minds refuse to look through the foggy nights.

The anticipation of pain and joy doesn't exist anymore.
They are just there and they keep on walking.
They know not of where they are going and where they came from is no more.
We know of their pain, it is as evident to us as Our own fingers on our hands. The resounding song of despair is so loud.
So loud in the loud silences of our minds and we keep on watching.

I look on, still watching and I think again. Were they without names?
I ask again, to myself. Were they without names?
Those without names.

© Anawana Haloba 2007