it doesn't feel like spring
Honestly, you'd think I'd be used to snow in April by now. It happens more often than not around here-- it's all part of the phenomenon commonly called "springtime in the Rockies."
And still, it never fails to surprise me. At least this year it doesn't look as though there will be a foot and a half of snow falling on my birthday, and that's just fine with me.
I've got a lot to get done today and over the next few days, in a variety of arenas. I've figured out that I make better progress with a cup of tea or cocoa or coffee to hand and an optimistic outlook as I trudge along steadily like a determined tortoise. Sadly, tortoises don't do well in the snow, I don't think. Therefore, clearly I need a new analogy -- how would you all describe your study and work habits?
Finally, being as it's still April, I've got more poetry to offer. These two are by Pablo Neruda, who I've mentioned here before. Both are translated by Alastair Reid, whose does a fine job of matching the lyrical essence of the poetry to the meaning of the words, I think.
As for why I selected these particular two to offer? That's a little harder to explain, although I will make the attempt if anyone really wants to know. :) Suffice for now to say that both have a darkly vivid appeal in terms of the image that each presents, in very different ways-- and both seem to me to give an insight into a societal nature of things that is not always bright and shining, and yet which can be overcome.
Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
(Pablo Neruda, trans. Alastair Reid)
All these gentlemen were there inside
when she entered, utterly naked.
they had been drinking, and began to spit at her
recently come from the river, she understood nothing
she was a mermaid who had lost her way
the taunts flowed over her glistening flesh
obscenities drenched her golden breasts
a stranger to tears, she did not weep
a stranger to clothes, she did not dress
they pocked her with cigarette ends and with burnt corks
rolled on the tavern floor with laughter
she did not speak, since speech was unknown to her
her eyes were the color of faraway love
her arms were matching topazes
her lips moved soundlessly in coral light
and ultimately, she left by that door
scarcely had she entered the river than she was cleansed
gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain
and without a backward look, she swam once more
swam toward nothingness, swam to her dying.
There Is No Clear Light
(Pablo Neruda, trans. Alastair Reid)
There is no clear light,
no clear shadow, in remembering.
They have grown ashy-gray,
a grubby sidewalk
crisscrossed by the endless feet of those
who come in and out of the market.
And there are other memories, still looking for something to bite,
like fierce, unsatisfied teeth.
They gnaw us to the last bone, devouring
the long silence of all that lies behind us.
And everything lies behind, nights, dawns,
days hanging like bridges between darknesses,
cities, doors into love and rancor,
as if war had broken into the store
and carried off everything there, piece by piece,
till through broken doors
the wind blows over empty shelves
and makes the eyes of oblivion dance.
That's why daylight comes with slow fire,
and love, the whiff of far-off fog,
and street by street the city comes back, without flags,
trembling perhaps, to live in its smoke.
Yesterday's hours, stitched by life
threaded on a bloodstained needle,
between decisions endlessly unfulfilled,
the infinite beat of the sea and of doubt,
the quiver of the sky and its jasmine.
Who is that other me, who didn't know
how to smile, who died of sheer mourning?
The one who endured thebells and the carnations,
destroying the lessons of the cold?
It's late, late, but I go on, from example to example,
without knowing what the moral is,
because, in my many lives, I am absent.
I'm here now, and I'm also the man I was,
both at the same time.
Perhaps that's it, the real mystery.
Life, steady flow of emptiness
which filled this cup with days and shadows,
all brightness buried like and old-time prince
in his own infirm and mineral shroud,
until we are so behind that we don't exist.
To be and not to be-- that's what life is.
Of all that I was, I bear only these cruel scars,
because those griefs confirm my very existence.
And still, it never fails to surprise me. At least this year it doesn't look as though there will be a foot and a half of snow falling on my birthday, and that's just fine with me.
I've got a lot to get done today and over the next few days, in a variety of arenas. I've figured out that I make better progress with a cup of tea or cocoa or coffee to hand and an optimistic outlook as I trudge along steadily like a determined tortoise. Sadly, tortoises don't do well in the snow, I don't think. Therefore, clearly I need a new analogy -- how would you all describe your study and work habits?
Finally, being as it's still April, I've got more poetry to offer. These two are by Pablo Neruda, who I've mentioned here before. Both are translated by Alastair Reid, whose does a fine job of matching the lyrical essence of the poetry to the meaning of the words, I think.
As for why I selected these particular two to offer? That's a little harder to explain, although I will make the attempt if anyone really wants to know. :) Suffice for now to say that both have a darkly vivid appeal in terms of the image that each presents, in very different ways-- and both seem to me to give an insight into a societal nature of things that is not always bright and shining, and yet which can be overcome.
Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
(Pablo Neruda, trans. Alastair Reid)
All these gentlemen were there inside
when she entered, utterly naked.
they had been drinking, and began to spit at her
recently come from the river, she understood nothing
she was a mermaid who had lost her way
the taunts flowed over her glistening flesh
obscenities drenched her golden breasts
a stranger to tears, she did not weep
a stranger to clothes, she did not dress
they pocked her with cigarette ends and with burnt corks
rolled on the tavern floor with laughter
she did not speak, since speech was unknown to her
her eyes were the color of faraway love
her arms were matching topazes
her lips moved soundlessly in coral light
and ultimately, she left by that door
scarcely had she entered the river than she was cleansed
gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain
and without a backward look, she swam once more
swam toward nothingness, swam to her dying.
There Is No Clear Light
(Pablo Neruda, trans. Alastair Reid)
There is no clear light,
no clear shadow, in remembering.
They have grown ashy-gray,
a grubby sidewalk
crisscrossed by the endless feet of those
who come in and out of the market.
And there are other memories, still looking for something to bite,
like fierce, unsatisfied teeth.
They gnaw us to the last bone, devouring
the long silence of all that lies behind us.
And everything lies behind, nights, dawns,
days hanging like bridges between darknesses,
cities, doors into love and rancor,
as if war had broken into the store
and carried off everything there, piece by piece,
till through broken doors
the wind blows over empty shelves
and makes the eyes of oblivion dance.
That's why daylight comes with slow fire,
and love, the whiff of far-off fog,
and street by street the city comes back, without flags,
trembling perhaps, to live in its smoke.
Yesterday's hours, stitched by life
threaded on a bloodstained needle,
between decisions endlessly unfulfilled,
the infinite beat of the sea and of doubt,
the quiver of the sky and its jasmine.
Who is that other me, who didn't know
how to smile, who died of sheer mourning?
The one who endured thebells and the carnations,
destroying the lessons of the cold?
It's late, late, but I go on, from example to example,
without knowing what the moral is,
because, in my many lives, I am absent.
I'm here now, and I'm also the man I was,
both at the same time.
Perhaps that's it, the real mystery.
Life, steady flow of emptiness
which filled this cup with days and shadows,
all brightness buried like and old-time prince
in his own infirm and mineral shroud,
until we are so behind that we don't exist.
To be and not to be-- that's what life is.
Of all that I was, I bear only these cruel scars,
because those griefs confirm my very existence.