Tariku's Droplets

When did Seeking only Accord become Democratic!   Tariku Abas Etenesh  Following the death of the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, p ictures -both old and new, Photoshop-treated postcards, animated status updates and expressions of condolences had become the common features of the past two weeks on the social media, especially Facebook.  The best and the worst in many people have got the chance to spill over and claim attentions in their own right. Nowhere could this mixed display could be seen more vividly that in the electronic and social media. However, after the state burial ceremony of the PM, one  more troubling  phenomenon  threatens to claim  attention in the form of a  bashing spree in the social media . These bashing tendencies have as their ‘credit’ and ‘excuse’ the supposed good or bad legacies of the late Prime Minister to throw spears of attacks towards others in some easy-to-att...

Then the gods Laughed  I took a tour around and inside, a museum and saw memorabilia of times past; Displayed in many forms and shelved, But under a common name identified; Underneath them all written, I read:  “gods of past civilizations.”   After visiting a myriad of such labeled beings, I asked:  “Where are the spots prepared?   for the gods of today to be shelved?”   Only then I heard loud laughter explode,   And turned to see it coming from each godhead:   Baal, Zeus, Horus, mythra and their entire league,   All labeled “past gods” saying in a rhythmic chorus:   “ Same is today as with us it had been,    No soul in our times thought we could wear out and p ass,    With the millennia and minds that fashioned us .”    -------------------------   (PTS, 2009)

A Tale of Two Drum Beats By Tariku Abas Etenesh (First appeared on  www.theethiopianamerican.com ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ቅዳሴ እና አዛኑን አጥር ቢለያቸው፡  ፈጣሪ ከሠማይ አንድነት ሰማቸው፡፡  …… “Liturgy and Azan(Salah), apart by a thin fence*, The Almighty of Heavens heard them as one voice . (Teddy Afro) Whenever I hear Tewodros Kassahun’s (aka Teddy Afro’s) classic song “Shemedefer,” it reminds me of my friend Mohammed Ali. Did the name Ali trigger a memory timeline and bring to life an image of a legend? I thought so. But let me save you the surprise: the young, flamboyant, greatest boxer of all time—“king of the world” (as he deservedly called himself)—is not the Ali I’m writing about. My friend Ali wasn’t even born when the great boxer became a champion not only of professional boxing, but also of the struggle against the grim reality of racial segregation in 1960s America. The ...

How could I know I am ‘the African’? By Tariku Abas Etenesh (First appeared on www.theethiopianamerican.com) Whoever had said books are good companions, deserves a nod of approval from anyone who had actually made friends out of books. Some books get you new experiences, and others give you new paradigms. I had read one of the latter kinds, years ago, that deservedly lent me, since then, a perspective to frame a question as a reply for the seemly conventional view about Africa and all Africans in the mainstream western rhetoric and conception of the continent. Sight Unseen The book is entitled ‘Sight Unseen,’ and recounts an unusual conversation between two philosophers, one sighted and the other visually impaired, both working at philosophy departments of two universities. The book is a collection of emails the two professors exchanged on a topic selected by the sighted one who wanted to explore what 'reality' meant for the blind. The book recounts how the first ...

Ode to *Sengbe Pieh (By Tariku Abas Etenesh ) J ust the other day, I was walking by the shore lines of *Mende, Where I looked foot prints on the sand, Not disturbed by the ebbs and tides, Nor washed by the winds; Wondering how it remained, By sea or land breeze undisturbed; I looked around in search of any wise mind, With the knowledge of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ Of the feet that pressed the marks so deep and hard, “Whose foot prints are these?” I asked, For which, I got a reply from a teacher of some kind,  “ Never knew or cared to; must be some one’s, But why worry yourself with the past, any way ?” Then the teacher walked away. Stunned by the futility of the reply, For the answer, along the trace did I stay; Only at night when the moon joined the ebbs, In what looked an eternal whisper of serenity, Composed in the rhymes of the tides and the sands, The moon looked down on me  with a smile, And said “I can tell you the s...

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 Improvise   ( Tariku Abas- Etenesh)  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A life that labors less to improvise, is a captive of the past devoid of surprises; Like a mastodon frozen beneath tons of ice, With freshness of looks and stillness of stance, Worthy of archeology, in blindfolded gaze.    (PTS, 2009 )