the journey

... and shatter me with Dawn

At last, to be identified!
At last, the lamps upon thy side
The rest of Life to see!

Past Midnight! Past the Morning Star!
Past Sunrise!
Ah, What leagues there were
Between our feet, and Day!

Behind Me—dips Eternity—
Before Me—Immortality—
Myself—the Term between—
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray,
Dissolving into Dawn away,
Before the West begin—

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door,
Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore—

The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

poems by Emily Dickinson



..

like a drifting cloud

If someone asks
My abode
I reply:
“The east edge of
The Milky Way.”

Like a drifting cloud,
Bound by nothing:
I just let go
Giving myself up
To the whim of the wind

Ryokan

Wenn jemand
nach meinem Wohnsitz fragt,
Antworte ich:
„Am östlichen Rand
Der Milchstraße“.

Gleich einer ziehenden Wolke,
Durch nichts gebunden:
Ich lasse einfach los,
Gebe mich
In die Launen des Windes.

(für Renée)



.
.

storm gathering upon the lonely shores of our lives

.
.

on mountains most separate

Nah ist
Und schwer zu fassen der Gott.
Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst
Das Rettende auch.
Im Finstern wohnen
Die Adler und furchtlos gehn
Die Söhne der Alpen über den Abgrund weg
Auf leichtgebaueten Brüken.
Drum, da gehäuft sind rings
Die Gipfel der Zeit, und die Liebsten
Nah wohnen, ermattend auf
Getrenntesten Bergen,
So gib unschuldig Wasser,
O Fittige gib uns, treuesten Sinns
Hinüberzugehn und wiederzukehren.


Friedrich Hölderlin
(Patmos)

Near is,
And difficult to grasp, the God.
But where danger threatens
That which saves from also grows.
In gloomy places dwell
The eagles, and fearless over
The chasm walk the sons of the Alps
On bridges lightly built.
Therefore, since round about
Are heaped the summits of Time
And the most loved live near, growing faint
On mountains most separate,
Give us innocent water,
O pinions give us, with minds most faithful
To cross over and to return.

(tr. M. Hamburger)

my soul the storm you've walked into

At first I wondered why I liked these (boring?) images, but then I realised they reminded me of Corot. So I am posting them to check on that :-)
And while doing some research, I discovered that Corot was a passionate photographer himself. It is believed that his experiments with monochrome prints led to an even greater sobriety of colour in his paintings. He confesses to disliking vivid colours:

“What there is to see in painting, or rather what I am looking for, is the form, the whole, the value of the tones…That is why for me the color comes after, because I love more than anything else the overall effect, the harmony of the tones, while color gives you a kind of shock that I don’t like. Perhaps it is the excess of this principal that makes people say I have leaden tones".

to find out more about his photographs, go here:
http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2008/01/hand-drawn-negative.html

before the storm

the mountains of my summer

(for Samsuddha)