Wednesday January 22 Anastasia Baburova poet and journalist and human rights fighter.
I’m not sure how this post took the two turns it did. Turn # 1, looking out an east-facing window in Lansing Reilly a few minutes ago I saw sunrise on its way. It’s almost over the horizon now. That reminded me this sunrise is one third of the way from the shortest day one month ago, to the equinox two months from now. Beautiful dawn as UDM Mcnichols people drive unto campus. Then I checked the temperature. – 1º; but we missed a monster storm that hit Chicago and then swung under us over to DC, Baltimore, Philly, New York, Boston.
Turn # 2, So weather stuff on my mind when I looked for a strong poem and found this short contemplation that Scott Simon broadcast in February 2009, about a beautiful young poet in Russia. Each time I come across Anastasia’s poem and Scott Simon’s account of her murder, I touch the center of my soul and understand what’s the point.
Cold sunny morning; one third of the way to equinox, one sixth of the way to the beginning of summer & the longest day of the year.
john sj
Here’s the post:
Britain’s Economist has printed a poem Anastasia wrote when she was just fifteen.
Wake up in the morning
Stretch your arms toward the sun
Say something in Chinese
And go to Paris Every minute,
somewhere in the world there is morning
Somewhere, people stretch their arms toward the sun
They speak new languages,
fly from Cairo to Warsaw
They smile and drink coffee together
Scott Simon editorial:
Even in such treacherous terrain, the recent killing of Anastasia Baburova, who worked for Novaya Gazeta, is especially outrageous. She was 25 years old. She was standing on a Moscow street on January 19 of this year with Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer who had been a source on some of her investigative stories when they were both shot dead — in the back of the head.
You are not surprised to learn that the girl who wrote it grew up to be a journalist — and all the more aghast and sad that her life was cut short.
Scott Simon February 14, 2009