رئيس التحرير: إخلاص فرنسيس 
الملتقى
The Radar
Where Time Sings: Echoes from Planet Nader
These creations begin on Earth but end in the Hereafter.
Attention! Speed is monitored by radar!
Some have sold their creative lifetimes to the radar —
out of fear, compulsion, and terror.
Some were forced to stop altogether.
Some lived their lives hunted,
chased through a hellish existence
just to get a fragment of their creativity
to reach others.
And some —
remain suspended in between…
Where is my life?
Where is my creativity?!
The Details of the Details
Planet of a Rare Village
Lost among Your worshippers — so lost.
They think the universe is just night and day.
They don’t know we’re living on a planet
narrower than a needle’s eye.
The world is made of planets —
the most important of them is the Planet of the Countryside,
followed by the Planet of the City.
Each planet has its own laws,
its own gravities, its own realms.
And now — at this very second —
on the final day of 1970,
at precisely 4:03 PM,
we are on the soil of Planet Nader.
This planet passes through twenty-four hours each day —
half of them sunlight,
the other half cloaked in darkness.
Each side hosts its own creatures —
which live and die by its rules.
In my village,
man needs no symphony, no formal music,
no virtuosos, no orchestras,
no media broadcasting music.
For he is submerged in the sea of cosmic music.
What drives one to madness is this:
This villager himself is made of that music.
Music whose source no one can trace.
Music that is of a kind unknown to the global musical notation.
Music that is the Light of God upon the Earth —
Spiritual, luminous,
the music of Nature itself.
Yes, yes…
It carries the day and night upon its back since time began.
And no morning — no matter how forceful —
can break through
until the rooster grants it permission.
Then the birds follow.
Then the doves and pigeons.
Only then does daylight creep into the body of the village —
unafraid.
Soon follow
the sounds of doves, pigeons,
donkeys, dogs,
and the hooves of livestock.
Before daylight leaves and night takes its place,
the curlew heralds the dusk.
Then come the savage sounds:
wolves, snakes,
crickets, strays, frogs.
And then enters the sound of death —
the cry that proclaims the death of night
so the dawn may rise again —
the crow.
This has been the nature of my village
since God first created it.
Perfect.
Untouched.
And the father of all these sounds —
is the sound of the waterwheel (saqia).
From this sacred sound, all others are born.
The waterwheel has two great discs,
each like a car’s wheel.
One holds a hundred iron gears,
the other fifty.
Each cog fits its mate —
each drives the other forward.
When the waterwheel turns,
the gears pulse:
the pulses birth rhythms,
the rhythms give birth to melodies,
and the melodies give birth to moans…
All from the heartbeat of the saqia:
Dub… Dub… Dub… Dub
Tick… Tick… Tick… Tick
Trrrn… Trrrn… Trrrn Tick
Kkkkkkkk Trrrn
Takh… Tikh… Trrrn Tick
Toooooook
Trrrn Trrrn Trrrn
Trak
And the musician?
The buffalo’s hooves —
as they speed up or slow down.
And when you look up at the sky —
at the armies of color erupting
from the womb of moon, sun, and stars —
you hear with your eyes
this cosmic music,
and wonder:
Did it emerge from the womb of the heavens?
Or from the womb of the saqia?
Among all these voices,
a principal hero emerges:
the sound of the saqia’s scoops (qawadees).
As each scoop dives deep into the well,
filling to the brim,
ascending in waves of music:
Splashes of water,
joined by the symphony of nails
and iron rods.
Anyone who gazes deeply at this planet
will discover a gallery of cosmic art —
a celestial orchestra
as old as Time itself.
And the villagers?
They absorb this symphony in their souls,
and give it back
infused with giant cosmic colors.
All of them,
every soul in the village,
carries within it
this eternal music.
This is the planet of my village: Nader.
