Kiani Akina’s Reviews > Song of the Exile > Status Update

“Sunny saw a ruby red spider mending the gossamer rigging of her web. Smelling her tears, the spider paused and cautiously approached, eyes tiny web and ran across Sunny's cheek, nuzzling a teardrop. A little drunk and dreamy, she ran back to her web, weaving human sadness into the arches and loggias of her universe. Sunny touched her cheek and watched.
How quietly she weaves. How patiently she bides her time.”

"And out beyond your lane, Keo, there will be other lanes. And streets and avenues. And then above, behind, around it all, will be the sea, the Mother Sea, crashing and defying, destroying and rebirthing. Applauding all we know as life . . ."

"I dream of equatorial heat that made skin blister. I wake with searing arms and legs. Dreams can be so real. I dream of rains, torrential, endless jungle rains. I know they will end. They always did. I know the stars will come again. If only I lie still ...”

"Maybe I'll always be torn. Something of an exile. Much like you.”
"Me? I'm back where I belong."
"No, Hula Man. You'll never quite belong. That's why I look out for you."
"What do you mean?"
"Exile is not just physical. It's deep inside you. The truth—didn't you feel little bit of exile even with your sweetheart?…On your happiest day in Paris, weren't you always little bit alone?"(211)

The details of living began to elude him. He forgot certain rituals, bathed and shaved sporadically, stopped oiling his hair so it gren rough and kinky. It was through Sunny he had come to love his skin, his compact body. In loving him, she had extolled his dark ele gance. Now he understood how beauty exists only when one exists in someone else's eyes, how in the existence of another human, we find our human dignity.

“When he could move, when he finally dared to, Keo glanced out the window. A cloudy day. Yet the landscape almost blinded him. He saw life, the pure miracle of life-its ancient realms, its vast jeweled portals-wherein each human stood suspended in his moment. He saw it as if for the first time.
To be alive, he thought. To be allowed to live!”