1217. Sometimes - Evelyn Waugh

 

Sometimes I feel

the past and the 

future pressing

so hard on either side

that there’s no room

for the present at all.

1216. Quotes from “Thoreau and the Art of Life” Roderick MacIver

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there

is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, 

and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, 

are not only not indispensable, 

but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful

than it is convenient, more beautiful than it is useful, 

it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used. 

All change is a miracle to contemplate, 

but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

One’s friendship with oneself, based largely on solitude,

determines what we do with our life and is the basis

of real success. Ultimately, we live in our own reality,

and our inner life determines that reality.

There no remedy for love but to love more.

1215. Foreigner - Imtiaz Dharker

I was born a foreigner.

I carried on from there

to become a foreigner everywhere

I went, even in the place

planted with my relatives, 

six-foot tubers sprouting roots, 

their fingers and faces pushing up

new shoots of maize and sugar cane.

All kinds of places and groups

of people who have admirable

history would, almost certainly

distance them selves from me.

I don’t fit,

like a clumsy-translated poem;

like food cooked in milk of coconut

where you expected ghee or cream,

the unexpected aftertaste

of cardamom or neem.

There’s always that point where

the language flips

into an unfamiliar taste;

where words tumble over

a cunning tripwire on the tongue;

where the frame slips,

the reception of an image

not quite turned, ghost-outlined,

that signals, in their midst,

an alien.

And so I scratch, scratch

through the night, at this

growing scab on black on white.

Everyone has the right

to infiltrate a piece of paper.

A page doesn’t fight back.

And, who knows, these lines

may scratch their way

into your head

through all the chatter of community, 

family, clattering spoons,

children being fed-

immigrate into your bed,

squat in your home,

and in a corner, eat your bread,

until, one day, you meet

the stranger sidling down your street,

realize you know the face

simplified to bone,

look into its outcast eyes

and recognize it as your own. 

1214. Ripeness - Jane Hirshfield

 Ripeness is

what fails away with ease.

Not only the heavy apple,

the pear, 

but also the dried brown strands

of autumn iris from their core.

To let your body 

love this world

that gave itself to your care

in all its ripeness,,

with ease,

and will take itself from you

in equal ripeness and ease,

is also harvest.

And however sharply

you are tested—

this sorrow, that great love—

it too will leave on that clean knife.

1213. Poetry - Pablo Neruda

 Translated by Alistair Reid

And it was at that age…Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don’t know how or when,

no they were not voices, they were not

words nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say  my mouth

had no way

with names

my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I saw

the heavens

unfastened and open,

planets,

palpitation, plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled

with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind.

1212. “ i thank You God for most this amazing” - e. e. cummings

 

i thank You God for most this amazing

day for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

1211. Illusions - Jim Fadiman

There are no ex-lovers,

Only candles with wicks close-timed.

Glowing in vast spaces

Their light ones filled.

There are no broken hearts,

Only places inside souls,

where pain, stitched over,

leaves fine scars.

There are no lives lost,

Only times of separation,

As seeds fall from trees,

Asking no more than soft moist earth

To begin again.

1210. The Two Of Us Together And Each Of Us Alone - Yehuda Amichai

 Translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld

        “The two of them together and each of them alone”

          —from a rental contract

Another summer, my girl, is over and gone,

And Dad didn’t come to Luna Park to play.

Still, all the swings go on swinging away.

The two of us together and each of us alone.

The seas horizon keeps losing its ships-

Holding onto anything now is hard indeed.

The fighters are waiting behind the hills.

Compassion is what we dearly need.

The two of us together and each of us alone.

The moon is sawing the clouds in half.

Come, let’s step forth for a lovers’ duel.

Just the two of us at love before the warring camps.

It still may be possible to change it all.

The two of us together and each of us alone.

My love turns me like a salt sea it seems,

Into sweet drops of autumn’s first rain.

I’m brought to you slowly as I fall. Take me in.

For us there’s no angel who will come to redeem.

For we are together. Each of us alone

The two of us together and each one alone - Yehuda Amichai

    Translated from the Hebrew by A.Z. Foreman

My dear, another summer's turned dark

And my dad hasn't come to the amusement park.

The seesaw still goes up and down.

The two of us together and each one alone.

The horizon loses its ships off the shore. 

Hard to hold onto a thing anymore.

The fighters crouched behind the hill.

How much we need of mercy still!

The two of us together and each one alone.

The moon is sawing the clouds in two.

Let hand-to-hand love bring me against you.

We alone will make love where the two camps fight.

Perhaps we can still make everything right.

The two of us together and each one alone.

 

My love has changed me, it seems plain, 

As the salt sea to drops of sweet first rain.

I am brought to you slowly and falling, my dear.

Receive me. No angel redeems us here.

Because the two of us are together. Each is alone.

1209. Jorge Luis Borges - Jorge Luis Borges

 

But after all

writing poetry

is nothing more 

than a guided dream

and now now advanced age

has taught me

to resign myself

to being Borges.

1208. As Seen At The Uffizi - Dan Brown -

 

An audience of shepherds 

Looks on adoringly

As Mary gently bounces

The babe upon her knee.

To Mary’s side stands Joseph.

He isn’t looking on.

His gaze is middle distance 

He wishes he were gone.

Up into the high mountains

That rim the little town 

To dwell among the shepherds

Till things have settled down.

1207. Our Two Silences - Anna Swir

 

Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

Silence

flows into me and out of me

washing my past away.

I am pure already waiting for you. Bring me 

your silence.

They will doze off

nestled in each other’s arms,

our two silences. 

1206. A Call - Seamus Heaney

“Hold on,” she said, “I’ll just run out and get him.

The weather here’s so good, he took the chance

To do a bit of weeding.”

So I saw him

Down on his hands and knees beside the leek rig,

Touching, inspecting, separating one

Stalk from the other, gently pulling up

Everything not tapered, frail and leafless,

Pleased to feel each little weed-root break,

But rueful also…

Then found myself listening to

The amplified grave ticking of hall clocks

Where the phone lay unatended in a calm

Of mirror glass and sun struck pendulums…

And found myself then thinking: if it were nowadays,

This is how Death would summon Everyman.

Next thing he spoke and I nearly said I loved him.