December 2011
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“For last year’s word belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await...”
– T. S. Eliot, from Section II of Quartet no. 4 “Little Gidding”, in Four Quartets (with thanks to apoetreflects)
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(I wrote this to a dear friend of mine but felt like sharing it with all of you)
Instead of wishing you a Happy New Year
I want to wish you happiness, for the remains of this year, the coming year and for all years to come, always.
For that you will find it in familiar places & new horizons, friends & strangers, in books & around street corners, just waiting for you to embrace it...
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“These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely...”
– Richard Wilbur, from “Year’s End”
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“As if these words could alter wind’s lucid course
And make the trees wave...”
– Goodbye in Slow Motion with Those Trees Waving Back by Alexander Long
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“Don’t repeat—your soul is rich—
That which has been said...”
– Anna Akhmatova, from the Cycle “Secrets of the Crafts”, in The Complete Poems (translated by J. Hemschemeyer)
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“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself....”
– Salman Rushdie, from The Ground Beneath Her Feet (with thanks to pavorst)
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Sharing these personal notes is such a struggle sometimes. I end up writing, re-writing and deleting for hours on end. My draft folder and moleskin are both filled with hundreds of unshared thoughts and feelings. I feel like words are bursting out of me and freezing at the same time, like a constant stream of lava, turning to stone simultaneously.
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My family’s name is entwined with a small town in northern Poland. Where lakes and trees have marked a silent landscape, and despite the darkness of history, the Baltic Sea’s salty breath blows endlessly all the same. I never visited, but I can feel its somber beauty as a part of me, perhaps more than everything I do know.
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“On average, odd years have been the best for me.
I’m at a point where everyone...”
– Fragments for the End of the Year by Jennifer K. Sweeney (with thanks to read a little poetry)
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“This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is...”
– Theodore Roethke, from “The Waking”
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“When I left home at seventeen, I left for good.
That pale haze of stars goes on...”
– Larry Levis, from “Winter Stars”
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“We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of...”
– Dean Koontz, from Life Expectancy (with thanks to whiskeyriver)
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“There are times
when i forget my name,
where i am more
the way the wind...”
– Santiago, from “before the names”
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Tristana by Nils Frahm (from Wintermusik)
17:26...
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“l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness”
– e e cummings
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“When you wrote your letter it was April,
And you were glad that it was spring...”
– Response by Mary Ursula Bethell (with thanks to ahuntersheart)
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At times I feel the darkness more than the light which seems too fleeting, momentary beauty flickers and faints. I scatter pieces of lost feelings and moments I can never return to, holding on to words that are forgotten once spoken.
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“I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love...”
– Ode to Things by Pablo Neruda (translated by Ken Krabbenhoft)
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“we must bring
our own light
to the
darkness.”
– Charles Bukowski, from “We Must”
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“As long as nothing can be known for sure
(no signals have been picked up...”
– The Ball by Wisława Szymborska (translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Claire Cavanagh)
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“Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my...”
– What I Have Learned So Far by Mary Oliver
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“Sometimes I think I was made for the stripped back world, the naked trees.
I...”
– thesecrethistory
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“Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles
and pulls you back into...”
– Sometimes, When the Light by Lisel Mueller
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“I
O that we might be our ancestors’ ancestors.
A clump of slime in a...”
– Songs by Gottfried Benn
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“Recordar: To remember; from the Latin re-cordis, to pass back through the heart.”
– Eduardo Galeano, from The Book of Embraces (with thanks to leopoldgursky)
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“Even a map cannot show you
the way back to a place
that no longer exists.”
– Sandra M. Castillo, from “Christmas, 1970”
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I Wrote You A Story Instead
for Elisha
I can hear your breathing and the suppression of Your despair Fumble your keys - I’d say to you if I could - they Represent freedom You can leave at anytime Are you at home? Then you must excuse yourself - you’re not feeling Well-see yourself out you call as you take to Your bed I can say these things easily to you should you Need to hear them Could hear them These - in fact - are...
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“When I hear violin music, I feel a painful clutch at my heart. I didn’t...”
– Anna Kamieńska, from Industrious Amazement: A Notebook
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She came to me— oh, how can I say it? in the early dusk as the sun lingered on farthest westerly clouds, a slight pink embroidering the darkening blue. This is the image, not of her going with the day; no, nor of her coming with the night, but of her appearance to me that peculiar moment before day concedes night; she came through the winter air, a part of it, and yet separate, like...
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“And it was so good this summer
To become unaccustomed to my name
In that...”
– Anna Akhmatova, from The Complete Poems (translated by J. Hemschemeyer)
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“I am not a poet
but a shadow
walking through days and streets
without a...”
– Caitríona Ní Chléirchín, from “Shadow”
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On this side of the door she sits all feathers and veins with her legs bent and tight to her chest trying hard to bring her breath back to light and how words are given to knives. (and why?) On the other side of the door the pigeons flutter in the plaza, small wild flowers breathe in the crevices of picture gardens and the rain that pitched shadows left barren the nest while words try to throw...
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“It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come our real work,
...”
– The Real Work by Wendell Berry
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“I take my dreams and make of them a bronze vase
and a round fountain with a...”
– I Continue to Dream by Langston Hughes (with thanks to pavorst)
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“This body
grown fragile, floating,
a reed cut from its roots …
If a...”
– Ono no Komachi (translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani)