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.