Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I roll on a wave and look at white clouds.
You are right, Jeanne, I don't know how to care about the salvation of my soul.
Some are called, others manage as well as they can.
I accept it, what has befallen me is just.
I don't pretend to the dignity of a wise old age.
Untranslatable into words, I chose my home in what is now,
In things of this world, which exist and, for that reason, delight us:
Nakedness of women on the beach, coppery cones of their breasts,
Hibiscus, alamanda, a red lily, devouring
With my eyes, lips, tongue, the guava juice, the juice of la prune de Cythère,
Rum with ice and syrup, lianas-orchids
In a rain forest, where trees stand on the stilts of their roots.
Death, you say, mine and yours, closer and closer,
We suffered and this poor earth was not enough.
The purple-black earth of vegetable gardens
Will be here, either looked at or not.
The sea, as today, will breathe from its depths.
Growing small, I disappear in the immense, more and more free.
Milosz
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ReplyDeleteI love the distance in his voice here: the calm gaze over the tapestry, a quiet voice in the gentle rain.
ReplyDeleteThis is from a car advert but listen to the voice (you have to click on the triangle at the bottom left).
Listen. Time passes.
"For how to be above and simultaneously to see the Earth in every detail? And yet, in a precarious balance of opposites, a certain equilibrium can be achieved thanks to a distance introduced by the flow of time. "To see" means not only to have before one's eyes. It may mean also to preserve in memory. "To see and to describe" may also mean to reconstruct in imagination. A distance achieved, thanks to the mystery of time, must not change events, landscapes, human figures into a tangle of shadows growing paler and paler. On the contrary, it can show them in full light, so that every event, every date becomes expressive and persists as an eternal reminder of human depravity and human greatness...the Earth seen from above in an eternal now and the Earth that endures in a recovered time "
ReplyDeleteb!!!!! so good to hear from you again! I thought you disappeared! I've missed you!
ReplyDeletebut hey, this is so strange! such a coincidence! hmmm, I don't know if you will believe me, but I have this book, Under Milk Wood, next to my computer since weeks now. I love Dylan Thomas so much, I can't tell how much, but I know only his poems. and I had opened this book many times, read a bit and then closed it again, and left it there waiting for me, or I was still waiting for it, as if I felt somehow that the time hadn't come for me to read it. and now this! and richard burton's voice! I found the whole text read by him at another site, but I suppose you already know it. is it embarrassing to confess that I like burton? :-)
I've not read much Milosz, this makes me want to read more and of course the pics are beautiful as always.
ReplyDeleteyes, anonymous. I like the way he describes the poet's role as seeing from above and yet in every detail. I had to think also of Lesage's Diable boiteux, do you know it? a book in which the narrator is taken by the devil in a flying journey to look under the roof of every house to see what happens inside and tell the story. here, there is a satirical scope, but I find this interesting, the poet's connection with the devil. of course, there is the whole Romantic Lucifer-myth. we have a very important poet and thinker, Lucian Blaga, who places the idea of "mystery" at the core of its theory of knowledge (in the 20's) and talks about two different kinds of knowledge, and he names the poetic one "the Luciferic one", a minus-knowledge: because in seeing the things from above and exposing them in light, it doesn't abolish their mystery, on the contrary, it expands and deepens it, you know and yet you don't know the object. it is knowledge but not one that we can possess, that would bring a "plus" on our list for every mystery of the world we manage to "solve", as is the case with rational/empirical knowledge.
ReplyDeleteanyway... :-) maybe it is not really related, but I like this image a lot :-)
thank you Sorlil. I like this poem so much, you know.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, in some traditions it is only the devil who knows the 100th name of God; for some (Mansur) the devil is the true believer, the true lover, because he refuses to bow down to anyone else, to swerve from the devotion. Perhaps it is the humans who are really di-vided.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't believe you ! :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Dylan Thomas but, as I've said before, what is important here -especially here-is the voice (for me, anyway). It is the rhythms that I grew up with.
But no, my sister is a big fan.
this is such a gorgeous poem. And the pictures are perfect with it.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I have been meaning to ask you but do you publish/ exhibit your photograpghs? Because you really, really should.
Wow, great post, great blog. The words and images, both exciting in themselves, complemented each other wonderfully, I thought. My first visit, but you can put me down as a regular from now on.
ReplyDeleteszerelem, hi :-) well, I've participated in some exhibitions, I had two in Japan, but I don't think so many people like my pictures :-), and my way of taking fotos is just not fashionable. they do things differently nowadays. I mean, if you want to have exhibitions, to be published and so on. I don't care about it, since my heart belongs to pictorialism anyway :-) I just long for beauty, the way I see and feel it. and I find joy in sharing it, if there is somebody out there feeling the same.
ReplyDeletedave king: Thank you for visiting and for your enthusiasm, I'll come read you too!
ReplyDelete