Saturday 15 May 2010

i want this music and this dawn

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I don't get tired of you. Don't grow weary
of being compassionate toward me!

All this thirst equipment
must surely be tired of me,
the waterjar, the water carrier.

I have a thirsty fish in me
that can never find enough
of what it's thirsty for!






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Show me the way to the ocean!
Break these half-measures,
these small containers.

All this fantasy
and grief.

Let my house be drowned in the wave
that rose last night in the courtyard
hidden in the center of my chest.






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I don't want learning, or dignity,
or respectability.

I want this music and this dawn

and the warmth of your cheek against mine.





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The grief-armies assemble,
but I'm not going with them.

This is how it always is
when I finish a poem.

A great silence comes over me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.


Rumi, A Thirsty Fish
(tr. by Coleman Barks)






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30 comments:

  1. I find your photos magical, always full of depth and mystery...existing always in that momentous place of not knowing.

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  2. I am totally disoriented with these images...

    Lost...

    No signs to guide.

    And can't help but thinking of fish tonight in the dark and darker waters of the Mexican Gulf, fleeing for their lives... lost, fearful...

    When fish swim in circles,
    It's a mad world, mad world
    (... Tears for Fears)

    One almost hallucinates here, hallucinating without ingesting any chemical inducement to do so... that is a sign of fine art...

    As always, silent and reverent thanks to you Roxana, for challenging us to open our eyes an drink in something totally different.

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  3. Rêve, poésie, rêve, poésie, rêve, poésie, rêve, poésie...
    Je n'arrive pas à trouver d'autres mots, d'ailleurs ils sont inutiles...

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  4. little fish, how cute!:-)

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  5. Amazing, the first one in particular - would fit a sea theme too!!

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  6. wow wow
    the powerful world of the deep sea

    beautiful

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  7. Tu me laisses sans voix...Tout simplement superbe, j'adore cette photo!!! !!! !!!

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  8. ... und:

    "Mit deiner Seele hat sich meine gemischt, wie Wasser mit dem Weine.

    Wer kann den Wein vom Wasser trennen,
    Wer dich und mich aus dem Vereine?.."

    fantastische Bilder, liebe Roxana, aber welches mich erfüllt, ist Dein letztes Foto... Wissen, Friede und wärmender Gleichmut!

    Lass es Dir gutgehen und lass Dir herzliche Grüsse schicken!
    Bis bald, liebe Roxana!

    Renée

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  9. Fishing on the Susquehanna in July
    by Billy Collins

    I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
    or on any river for that matter
    to be perfectly honest.

    Not in July or any month
    have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure--
    of fishing on the Susquehanna.

    I am more likely to be found
    in a quiet room like this one--
    a painting of a woman on the wall,

    a bowl of tangerines on the table--
    trying to manufacture the sensation
    of fishing on the Susquehanna.

    There is little doubt
    that others have been fishing
    on the Susquehanna,

    rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
    sliding the oars under the water
    then raising them to drip in the light.

    But the nearest I have ever come to
    fishing on the Susquehanna
    was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia

    when I balanced a little egg of time
    in front of a painting
    in which that river curled around a bend

    under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
    dense trees along the banks,
    and a fellow with a red bandanna

    sitting in a small, green
    flat-bottom boat
    holding the thin whip of a pole.

    That is something I am unlikely
    ever to do, I remember
    saying to myself and the person next to me.

    Then I blinked and moved on
    to other American scenes
    of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

    even one of a brown hare
    who seemed so wired with alertness
    I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

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  10. The deep connection between images and words, transcends my eyes and beyond. Inside me I have too, directionless fishes wandering in a sea of misty choices. Rarely, they march together like a synchronized swimming team, but usually, disliking the monotony they are fooled by the streams and break down the lines in the pursuit of the illusory happiness.
    "We're just two lost souls
    Swimming in a fish bowl
    Running over the same old ground
    What have we found
    The same old fear
    Wish you were here!"
    the lately discovered friend from CJ

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  11. DOAMNE,ANDREEA,CE FRUMOSI SUNT PESTII...

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  12. Hi Roxana,

    What lyrical images! I showed my boyfriend your photography and he echoed my own sentiments in much fewer words... "Just beautiful. No point and shoot going on there." To say the very least! And Rumi as our guide. I'm captivated.

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  13. So very wondrous. The colors are divine, the mood ponderous. I, like Owen, thought of the fishes and sea creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and felt very trapped inside.

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  14. Dearest, you are so amazing. Your imprimatur is crucial in the validation of my soul.

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  15. i can't believe how amazing you are

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  16. One could cry
    A flood of tears
    To make a salty river
    That these fish
    Once loose
    From the bowl
    Might find their way
    To the sea

    One might
    Smile
    A smile brighter
    Than the sun
    To dry up that river
    Of tears
    And smile to think
    That fish swim free

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  17. dear ones, thank you so much for all your kindness and enthusiasm, i certainly didn't expect so much love for my little lost fish...
    every word (and poem!) you offered here is cherished and my joy goes back to you. i hope you can feel it.

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  18. je vous remercie, K'line et Marc., de tout coeur! c'est dans vos yeux que reside la poesie, sinon mes images ne pourraient pas vous toucher autant -

    je vous embrasse (de sous la pluie, il fait si sombre aujourd'hui et il pleut depuis des jours...)

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  19. ich muss Dir wieder danken, liebe Renée, fuer Deine einfuehlsamen Worte und das erstaunliche Zitat. und weisst Du was? ich hatte die Fisch-Serie schon gepostet (nur Fische), aber ich fuehlte, dass etwas fehlt. und dann habe ich das letze Bild zugefuegt - und dachte dabei: Renée wird das vielleicht moegen :-)
    und nun sagst Du mir das!

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  20. Roxana, hi.

    Yes i have read your comments, thanks. i only know two persons who are poets by profession and the rest are poets by disposition, by nature, with that slant in the eyes, with that lonely smile. you don't have to be a published poet in the literal sense, do you?

    Re Soseki, this has been the Soseki year so far. i am midway through The Wayfarer, that beast of a novel. i so much admire depiction of mental states in fiction, more than 'story lines'. stories don't interest me that much. Soseki is an alone master in this manner, with nothing much happening as we read, and yet everything. the portrayal of mental states is extremely clinical, to say the least.

    I am by nature reluctant to enthuse too much when i read something new but Soseki yes, i have become a Soseki enthusiast. About Mishima, i will read your suggestions.

    what were you doing in Japan? answer only if the answer is not complicated!

    and yes, the our coffee meeting? it has already assumed the lyric sheath of myth and waiting. i hope we do meet someday.

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  21. ... und dafür umarme ich Dich, liebe Roxana! DANKE!

    Renée

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  22. it's the last one for me. for all the obvious reasons!

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  23. Roxana..
    dans ce bocal il y a un océan de vie de sensations et d'émotions....chacune de tes photos est un tableau..
    je me tais et j'admire...
    bises...

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  24. Roxana...
    une bonne friture... Hummm ! Comme c'est déléicieux ! ! !...:)
    Non...! Sans déconner... tes photos sont toujours aussi sublimes ! Je te confierais bien mon poisson tu sais ! ! !...:)

    Bises Miss de loin ou de près !

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  25. un spectacle aquatique travail soigner comme habitude beaucoup d"imagination pour cette composition si frénétique.

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  26. There are miracles born inside you. Truly.

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  27. ur work here is quite.. impressive

    just wanted to drop this

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