In the last two days, I have been writing a few poems as a response to some evocative photos taken by my friend Joao on his ranch in the Brazilian country side - all of trees against the horizon as night falls.

And in this process the central question that I am grappling with is that even when paradise is so close at hand, why do the feelings of pain (both mental and physical), agnst, and loneliness persist in our lives? We possess/ or given few things (perhaps many things), and yet why are we are still unhappy?

Dante's "Inferno", in English translation, which I am reading to sleep, for the past few night, perhaps, will provide another direction to reframe such questions, as I descend with Virgil, Dante's guide, into the seven circles of Hell. But for now it is time to hit the road for the daily run - shedding salt in one fashion or the other is good, if not as tears as sweat.