Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring -- these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration. In all things, it is the beginnings and the ends that are interesting. Does the love between men and women refer only to the moments when they are in each other's arms? The man who grieves over a love affair broken off before it was fulfilled, who bewails empty vows, who spends long autumn nights alone, who lets his thoughts wander to distant skies, who yearns for the past in a delapidated house -- such a man truly knows what love means.
The moon that appears close to dawn after we have long waited for it moves us more profoundly than the full moon shining cloudless over a thousand leagues. And how incomparably lovely is the moon, almost greenish in its light, when seen through the tops of the cedars deep in the mountains, or when it hides for a moment behind clustering clouds during a sudden shower! The sparkle on hickory or white-oak leaves seemingly wet with moonlight strikes one to the heart. One suddenly misses the capital, longing for a friend who could share the moment.
Kenko, Essays in Idleness
Have you ever seen the moon in the small hours of the morning, after dawn? I think that's when she's most beautiful, most fragile...where the sky and the moon are nearly the same colour, as she gently falls back into his arms and there's no more anarchy in her heart...only quiet after-thoughts.
ReplyDeleteAnd the light is strange then, so that one doesn't know if it is day or evening.
But what I like best about her then is that she is so very distant and that no-one else sees her except for me.
only quiet after-thougts... I like that...
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