instead of 'ars poetica' 1

this marvellous Calvino story about photography (a gift from swiss):

http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/calvino/calphotographer.html

I cleansed the mirror
of my heart...
now it reflects
the moon.

Renseki

I won't even stop
at the valley's brook
for fear that
my shadow
may flow into the world.

Dogen

Through one word, or seven words, or three times five, even if you investigate thoroughly myriad forms, nothing can be depended upon. Night advances, the moon glows and falls into the ocean. The black dragon jewel you have been searching for, is everywhere.

Dogen

note: these pictures were taken at a tea ceremony in Sendai, Japan, 2006.

a matter of principle

Ce nenorocire să ştiu
Că nu exişti decât în mine,
Să nu te simt în nici un fel
Și totuşi să nu mă îndoiesc
Că eşti acolo!
Dar dacă, totuşi, m-ai părăsit
Și eu îngrijesc cu supunere
Și ridicol devotament
Frumosii pereti ai statuii
Goale pe dinlăuntru -
Fără nici o fisură
Prin care să se poată zări ceva -
Întrebând încet, cu spaimă, din când in când,
'Ești acolo?',
Deşi ştiu că tu nu răspunzi
Din principiu...

Ana Blandiana

What a distress to know
That you only exist inside me,
To be unable to feel you
And yet to have no doubt
That you are there!
But what if you, nevertheless, have left me
And, compliantly, and with ridiculous devotion,
I keep looking after
The beautiful walls
Of a hollow statue -
Without a crack
To see through -
Asking quietly, fearfully, from time to time,
'Are you there?',
Although I know you don't answer
On principle...

trans. by alina

on forgetting

I thought to pick
the flower of forgetting
for myself,
but I found it
already growing in his heart.

Ono no Komachi

on not forgetting

When longing for him
Tortures me beyond endurance,
I reverse my robe --
Garb of night, black as leopard-flower berries --
And wear it inside out.

Ono no Komachi

ways of parting

When we walked out I saw the sky again after all the day's blindness -
little clouds and big clouds.
We said good-bye at Vinden's.
That is all.

I. They meet and just touch.
II. They come together and part.
III. They are separated and meet again.
IV. They realize their tie.

'you merely find yourself in the old position of trying to change me. And I refuse to be changed. I won't change. If I don't feel these things - I don't feel them, and there's an end of it.'
For a moment he stood there, cold, frigid, grasping the door-handle, staring not at her but over her head. He looked like a stranger who had opened her door by accident, and felt it necessary, for some reason or other, to explain the accident before he closed it again and went out of her life for ever.

'It's curious - my absolute confidence that I'll come back. I feel it's as certain as this pear'.
'I feel that too.'
'I couldn't not come back. You know that feeling. It's awfully mysterious.'

The shadows on the grass are long and strange; a puff of strange wind whispers in the ivy and the old moon touched them with silver. She shivers.

'You're cold'.
'Dreadfully cold'.
He puts his arm around her. Suddenly he kisses her - 'Good-bye, darling.'
'Ah, why do you say that?'
'Darling, good-bye... good-bye!'



(excerpts from Katherine Mansfield's Journal. The last one records one of her conversations with her brother, a week before his going to the front, where he was killed almost immediately.)

note: I had been pondering over this quotes for some time now, but reading Kubla's entry When they met last made me wish to make this post.

with Gloom, my squire

I was the moony knight, the moony scion,
all golden thread, all iron,
with a Golden Snail inlaid in my arms.
My device, "Easy does it",
and below, the saw, "Quod licet".
My squire, Gloom, on my right,
ever loyal. And night
would follow with its nightingales.
The forest would endite
my lays.
Oh leaf, little leaf, what do you know
of my woe -
sing on, sing away
the old lay,
"It's of forests, of fields,
of a soul that was slain
among trees, in a dream,
of the lamp of the moon
that lights up scenes in Paradise,
it's of a solitary place".
I was the moony knight,
moonier than the moon at night,
with Gloom, my squire, on a rare night -

Emil Botta (The Knight of the Golden Snail)
trans. by Dan Dutescu

the black roads of the soul

summer fairy tale

Once upon a time there was a distant country with green valleys and bright stars and small houses with flowering gardens and silent winds. When night fell upon that country, the lights used to flicker in the warm kitchens until all the children were in their beds, sleeping peacefully.
But the Little White Princess refused to sleep. Wearing her white cap and her shining white silk dress, she stood at her small window all night, wailing bitterly: I am not whole, I am not whole, what shall I do, what shall I do. In vain did her parents try to prove her wrong.
Thousands of doctors were brought in, they counted every pore of her skin and every hair on her head and every bone and every cell of her body, look, you are whole, Little Princess, stop crying, go to bed, sleep tight.
Thousands of wizards were called in the middle of the night, they looked at every corner of her soul with silver mirrors and checked her every movement and every path of her young thoughts with silver maginfying glasses, look, you are whole, White Princess, stop lamenting, go to sleep, dream beautifully of all the round and full things of this world. But the Princess wouldn’t listen. Every night her sorrowful song resounded over the country I am not whole, I am not whole, what shall I do, what shall I do.
One day, the king and the queen open the castle gate wide and cried bitter tears: Little White Princess, go out and try your luck and may the stars help you find those missing parts you keep talking about.

And so the Princess went. She travelled through spring forests and golden wheat fields and autumn clouds and heavy snows, singing her everlasting song, and the animals of the earth and the birds of the sky were shaking their heads and talking to one another in their strange languages tsk tsk little girl, don’t be foolish, go home, don’t you know your kind is never whole, tsk tsk what a stupid child, this White Princess after all...

On a summer morning, she stopped and stood in the fresh air and just looked. She saw the valley before her opening towards the rising sun, and still the light had a milky quality in its dampness and still there was a strange softness in the flowers with their bent heads of white.

She entered the valley full of joy.

There, in the middle of countless flowers, she felt a strange numbness in her limbs and fell asleep.

She dreamt of one red flower, glowing with unknown passion in a sea of gold. Oh, she cried in her dream, if I could see that flower, that only flower, and kneel before it, I would be whole.

But then the light of noon fell on her face and she opened the eyes and saw the bloody poppies on stems of gold dancing for her up in the sky, and her heart shrank and she knew then that her dream had been a lie and her mourning made the birds restless in their little nests and the fish ill in their blue rivers: I am not whole, I am not whole, what shall I do, what shall I do. She kept on going.

On a late afternoon, when the rain had moistened the colours of the grass and the earth was soft brown and the woods a boundless silence, she met a dark purplish horse in the fields. The horse spoke to her: Little Princess, I can take you somewhere, to a special place where you can find the answer to your prayer. The Little Princess clasped her hands and shouted with delight: Let’s go then, my purple horse, let’s not waste a second.

Wait, said the horse, I have a white brother. Which one of us do you choose for your journey? The Princess frowened. I shall go with you, my white silk dress glows more beautifully against your purple heart. And so they went, thousands and thousands of miles, they flew over the earth.

On a late evening, they reached a distant castle. The horse stopped. The Princess dismounted. Now you have to go alone, the horse said. The gate is closed. Before the gate, you have to wish hard for your answer. If your wish is strong enough and your heart is pure, the gate will open.

And then what, the Little Princess asked.

Then you go in, the horse laughed, turned around and left.

The Little Princess stood before the gate, stretched her arms with her little fists clenched, and wished hard for her to be whole, for the gate to open. On the other side of the world, the Gatekeeper felt her wish blow like a storm through wood and brick and iron and stone and force the walls to curve and the latchkeys to break open. He took his stick and hurried out to prevent this from happening.

Little girl, he started. The Princess frowned.


I am a Princess, you know.

Oh, I am sorry, said the old man in his sweetest tone, with this funny suit you have over there and this white cap, I thought you might be a little g... but wait, no you can’t be a princess, you are a chef, aren’t you?

The Princess looked at him incredulously. Pride and desire fought on her face.

Well, I suppose I could bake a cake for you, if you would just open that gate for me. A huuuuuge chocolate cake, what do you say?

The Gatekeeper laughed. Ay, White Princess, your cakes are of no use to me, look here, look what I have for you. And he opened his arms and unfolded his hands and all the sweets of the world started to flow and dance and circle round the White Princess, rainbows of melted chocolate and almond biscuits and tartes aux fruits and turkish delight and ginger bread and baklava and fluffy, transparent cakes with rose water and raisin breads and sorbets and cinnamon apple pies and colourful icecreams like sweet music. You can have all of this if you leave now, he said and winked as if suddenly amused. But the Little Princess stood there still and smiled and sang her sad song in a little soft voice. The old man bowed his head. The gate opened.

It was night when she entered the castle. Before her eyes, blooming across the lit sky, there stood one strange little tree in a sea of darkness.

She took a step closer. It was not a tree, just bright tufts of white grass and long waving plants reaching towards the sky like branches, and on those frail, tangled branches myriads of small yellow flowers glowed with a pale light and danced in the summer breeze.

What is this? the girl asked slowly, where are we?

The Gatekeeper put his hand on her shoulder. Little Princess, he said almost inaudibly, the yellow flowers... and when he said this the small flowers rose in the air like yellow butterflies and she didn’t know anymore whether they were flowers or butterflies with gold powdered wings which kept turning in circles about their heads, they are you.

Me? the startled Princess stared at him in disbelief.

Yes, your selves, the possible ones, the ones you lost, gathered here for ever, dancing their endless dance.
The breeze was now cold.

You mean...

Yes, White Princess, every time you make a decision, every time you choose a road and take one step on it, the inevitable, irreversible one, a Little Princess dies in you and her self turns to a yellow butterfly and comes fluttering to live here with the others. They are all here, all your selves, countless Little Princesses who might have been.

Oh, whispered the girl and took a long breath. She stared for a moment, an endless silence, at her tiny white shoes. And if I don’t choose but am forced to go one way or another? If I stand still and still the road unfolds me?

Those Little Princesses are here also. Choice or not, they are still dead, surely you can see that, don’t you, Little One?

But old man, the girl raised her voice suddenly, how can those little 'me' be here already, if I am small and still to grow and still to choose and still to walk, countless times and countless roads?

The Gatekeeper shook his head smiling. Well, my dear, this is a big question for big learned men and philosophers, not a little one for little girls errr sorry, little princesses.

She turned to stare at him again. Did they come here also, to look at their selves like me, those big learned men, did they open the gate too?

The old men laughed and shook his head as before, now you got me, Little Princess, no, they didn’t, not one of them.

Why, did they go for the ginger bread?
Her face was serious but he knew she had made a Little Princess joke.

He wanted to say something but at that moment a butterfly came down and sat on her forehead. You see, he said and stroked her hair gently, this little soul here is the one that died when you chose to ride the purple horse.

She felt something like tears in her eyes.

Would I have known the answer then, to my big question, if I had ridden the white horse and my white dress had become one with his white heart?

The Gatekeeper smiled and kissed her on her cheek, where another butterfly had settled, flapping its golden wings. He disappeared.

The girl stood still whilst the night was lighting up around her. Another butterfly came, a deeper shade of yellow, and then another one and another one, saffron and lemon and peach and amber yellow and their hues flowed into one another and their veil of gold was floating around her, wrapping her tightly as the veil a priest would wrap around a sacred corpse. They sat in her glowing hair, they covered her radiant skin, their silken beating of wings devouring the silk of her white dress, her white little chef cap, they burned on her arms like thousands of cold fires, they closed her eyes and filled her mouth.

The first one to enter her blood hurt. And then she felt growing, she felt expanding, she felt her body explode and then expand again, and an overwhelming fear paralysed her, the fear of the moment when the world would cease to contain her, and she would contain the world. Stop, she shouted in the voice of her devasted blood, you have no life, go away, I chose you not, I mourn you not. I refute the possible, I turn my back to all dead futures.

But it was too late. Some say the Little White Princess died the moment she became whole. Others say the gods took her just before the last butterfly sat upon her heart. Before that last beating of the golden wings, she vanished, because no mortal is ever to know what it is to be whole.

away for a while...

In the mountains, there you feel free.

T. S. Eliot

death of oblivion, in white and poppies

in the white fields of memory
kneeling at the root of time
asking for another poppy
and yet another poppy
to burst and hunt you down

while on the outside
i'm unfolding the summer
of my reckless blood

don't be afraid, Miriam

in the hour of your death
out of the white
gods will descend
to hold your hand
into the bright cloud

don't struggle, Miriam

when your lips open
for the last song
at your last supper
guests will descend
out of the bright
fire chariot upon fire chariot
flooding the white
they will sit in a circle
around your soft smile
they will smoke silently
your light bones powder

don't cry, Miriam

as your hour approaches
put on your bright dress
of daisies and poppies
braide your summer hair
to cover your breasts
your thighs and white knees

and wait.

and remember.

the drunken poppy of my sleepings

O laß mein Schweigen sein dein Lied!
Was soll des Armen Flüstern dir,
Der aus des Lebens Gärten schied?
Laß namenlos dich sein in mir -

Die traumlos in mir aufgebaut,
Wie eine Glocke ohne Ton,
Wie meiner Schmerzen süße Braut
Und meiner Schlafe trunkner Mohn.

Georg Trakl

O let my silence be your song!
What should the poor’s whisper be to you,
Who is separated from life’s gardens?
Let you be nameless in me -

Who is dreamlessly built up in me ,
Like a bell without tone,
Like my pain’s sweet bride
And the drunken poppy of my sleepings.