A Letter to The Moon

Dear Gentle Moon,

Floating through a sea of unknown realms
For centuries you have stood
Ever so graceful, ever so elegant
Throughout generations your spells were cast
On earthly mortals, and on still, silent nights

Beauty envied your clear glowing disk
Poets were inspired by your rare being
Lovers cherished every wee moment
Spent under the charms of your sliver beams
Loners found solace in your comforting presence
Stars refuse to glitter without your blue warmth
And clouded midnight skies weep
When you cease to illuminate their passages

But man had a dream
As old as the time he looked upon your radiant glow
His dream was to reach you, to get to you
Was it curiosity that was driving him?
Or his everlasting love for you?
Or was it greed? I do not know

But in the end, his dream came true
And I wish it hadn’t
For with it, it bought disappointment

Oh Dear Moon!
Is it true?
That you are nothing but a big cluster of celestial rock?
Darkened by the emptiness around you?
Feeding on light you steal from the sun?
Is it true you are infested with swollen craters?
Eating away your pale surface?
Leaving holes on your perfect face?
Is it true?
That you suffer loneliness? That you’re isolated?
In a dark chilling corner of the universe?
With the idea of bringing serenity to earthlings
As your only console?

Oh! Please tell me it is not true!

Are you not made of pure heavenly lights?
Does magic not dwell in your atmosphere?
Alluring fragrances fill your air, does it not?
Diamond mountains surround your vast blue plains?
Your silver trees bare fruits of rare jewels?
Do crystal flowers not grow on your pearly soil?
Your never ending seas of mercury?
Your gleaming gemstone riverbeds?
Your lunar skies, always radiant
As rich as a dark blue velvet dress
Like that of an enchanting fairy princess?
Your sublime beauty?
Untouched, unseen by any mortal?

You are all that, are you not?

Man claims he had fulfilled his dream
He claims he reached the moon
He claims he had landed on the lunar surface
An achievement he is ever so proud of

Tell him! Prove to him it was not you he reached!
But a distant waste land
Abandoned, and left to decay with time!

-A Poem By Mariam A.

The Secret Life of Bees

[2/52] The Secret Life of Bees
Originally uploaded by Midnight.Silver

There is nothing I enjoy more than going out for a walk all by myself. Even if I’m walking in a somewhat crowded place, I feel that I’m the only human in this universe.
Some people would find this feeling suffocating, but I think it would make a person appreciate the world around him more, and pay attention to tiny little details he wouldn’t have noticed while in the company of other people.
I was walking in the club yesterday (clubs in Egypt are more like big parks with cafés, tennis courts, children’s playgrounds, facilities, etc.) and I noticed some humming around a bed of flowers. I came closer and there were around twenty bees buzzing in all directions, they seemed so busy and occupied by what they were doing. They would fly from one flower to the next, and in less than a minute, they would have sucked nectar from more than five flowers at a time.
Oh how I envied them! How is it possible that bees, one of the tiniest of God’s creations, could have more dedication and persistence than us humans?

Drying Me Some Flowers

[1/52]
Originally uploaded by Midnight.Silver

The other day I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a gift. I don’t really like receiving flowers as gifts, I feel so sorry for the poor flowers! I think they would have preferred it if they were left alone in their own environment, with all their other flower friends. Besides, I think it can sometimes be a waste of money, seeing that flowers only last for a few days.
So I thought why not dry them? I haven’t dried any flowers before, so I thought it could be fun, and the poor flowers would live a little longer :)
After a little searching on the world wide web, I found two methods for drying flowers.
The first method is air drying, which is to hang the flower up-side-down for almost three weeks until they are totally dry.
The second method is dry them using glycerin.
I thought I could try the glycerin, since they said the results would turn out better, I used only half of the flowers.
For every 2 parts of water, you add 1 part glycerin, and fill a pot up to 5 inches of this solution and let the flowers soak for almost 24 hours. You would have to keep flipping them every now and then so that the solution would get to each part of the flowers.
After that you let them dry and then tie them with strings and hang them up-side-down in a dark dry place for about two to three weeks.
My Flowers are still soaking, so I guess I would tell you how they turn out in about two weeks insha’Allah :)

Project 52

Project 52
Originally uploaded by Midnight.Silver

The first time I discovered that I have an interest in photography was on a trip to one of our relatives' farm here in Cairo. I noticed that I was enjoying myself while shooting some of the flowers there, and when I uploaded them to my computer and showed them to my family, their first response was; “Have you copied that from Google images?”
That was almost a year ago.
Now that my photography skills have developed a “little”, I thought now is the best time to start project 365, I liked the idea very much since I also love writing, and I thought photography and writing would make a really good couple.
But shooting a photo everyday is not very easy, and like I have seen from many other photographers, once someone is out of ideas and things to shoot, you start taking pictures that lack quality and or substance just for the mere reason of taking a picture. Simply filling in the blanks.
So I came up with the idea of project 52, which is taking a photo once a week, or a collection of photos combined together to represent one week for a whole year. But I discovered that other people have done the same thing, so it wasn’t just my own idea, cool!
I know I have started late, seeing that it’s already March now, but I thought a year is a year, where it started it will end.
So here we go!
توكلت على الله :)