Tim Jones shreds me up with his impossible wisdom. No man should be that sane.
He's the man, gentle readers, who Caught a glimpse of Jesus down by the railroad tracks... Read him share how Heaven and Earth are Full...
By the fire one should drink ale, one should slide over the ice.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Somehow Marie Osmond Found Her Way Onto My Blog
...it must have been love. Being Mormon (or Catholic or Heathen or Jewish) does not wholly define each or any of us! It's the reason I don't care for the word "religion," because it tends to categorize people into slots. We are so much more, and our individual, personal beliefs so much more subtle and complex than these religion packages. Marie Osmond shows what a classy lady and a good mom she is. Read here.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
My Continuing Love Affair
My love affair with things that are small, secret, quietly lovely or silently remarkable continues unabated. I posted pictures of this delicate fern unfurling last year, and here I am again, enthralled both by its form (fascinating) and colors (achingly subtle). If I think about it too long, I'm positively overcome by the mechanism, the movement, of a fern uncoiling.
Delicate flower on a plant as hardy as they come. The contrast interests me. This is the only shade of columbine in my garden, because it's the one variety tough enough to return on its own year after year. I'm a sucker for plants that are both beautiful and independent!
Here are those Stars of Bethlehem that had me awestruck back in February. A few of them are blooming, this one beside a volunteer poppy. This spot was supposed to be new grass, planted in the vacancy left when I moved the garden east, but it was so thick with poppies that I decided to leave off mowing until after they bloom.
My close-ups are abysmal, I know. Sorry about that. You may be able to distinguish the two plants here. The heart-shaped leaves are the American Redbud. They sprout up everywhere, and if you don't move them before they're about 8 inches high, they have already grown a tap root nearly 2 feet deep, making them difficult to dig out. This redbud's companion is poison ivy; those are the notched leaves. I'm not particularly sensitive to it, but Al is, so the chore of removing it falls to me. Although if it were not for Alan, I'd probably just leave it, because it doesn't bother me, and the leaves are stunning red in the fall. By the way, the long, knife-like leaves are of faded daffodils. All these had to be moved when I was digging out bricks.Friday, February 20, 2009
I Dreamed I Could Fly
Please be kind in judgement. I wrote out this dream in stream of consciousness and only edited for the most obvious blunders. I left it in this form because I thought that best retained its dream quality.
.
I was lying on my back slightly inclined, but flat, and I remember that my hair was long as in real life and strands of it blown across my face. I was outdoors, and a group of young people, male and female, were gathered casually around to look at me, but though I could see them faintly, I could not open my eyes. In sleep, I realized it was sleep that held my eyelids closed, and it was a pleasant sensation, sleep, that is. I felt secure in my distance from the group, as though they could not harm me, although I lay vulnerable to them as they stood peering down at me.
Then a young man joined them. His name was John, and he noticed me right away as he approached the group. He had a kind look, not handsome, but he had dark hair in a thick mess around his face. The others thought I was of no use, but John did not dismiss me as lightly, and he knelt beside me to study my face. I slept on at ease. The interest of the others waned, and they began to wander away. Gently a breeze began, and it grew stronger. I rose and spread my arms, and the wind caught me up, lifting me at least twenty feet into the air. Immediately, John followed my example, and suddenly we were both flying in a blue sky above the Kansas fields. At first the other young people were astonished, then inspired, and they all, too, raised their arms and allowed the wind to lift them into flight. Soon, the great group of us was flying higher toward the setting sun. John always remained near me.
The sun set, and we saw in the distance the lights of a city closely packed with skyscrapers, lit in a myriad of colored lights. We flew into the evening city, but as we settled lower between its buildings, we were cut off from the wind, and we lost our ability to fly. Try as we might, we couldn’t find our way out of the city again. We were trapped, wandering, a people separate from the native inhabitants of the city. They called us “The Inspired Ones,” but ignored us otherwise and didn’t understand our need to be away from the streets and buildings. We wanted to fly again!
John was always with me.
One night while crossing on a bridge across a river, we looked into the night sky and our people saw a terrible accident between two aircraft occur. One of the planes plummeted from the sky toward the river. Our people scattered, and I tried to avoid the crash, as well, but it was as though doomed for me. The planed veered in my direction, but luckily landed in the water before reaching me. Thinking I was safe, I turned to John, and then I saw a small, mechanical apparatus leave the downed airplane. Swiftly, it flew over the water toward me and pricked me in the bare heel with a needle. It was only a small pain, and I thought little of it, then both were gone, plane and device. I was with John. We turned to continue across the bridge, but we found it broken by the crash, and we were stranded on a fragment in the midst of the river, while our people were safely on the farther shore. When we asked for their help to cross, they looked at us askance. Something had changed. None of the others wanted anything to do with John and me, and they left us on the bridge fragment, floating on the river, to make do for ourselves.
We lived on the bridge fragment, and John went everyday to make a living performing as a gladiator, but it was not glorious work. His face was always hidden behind a foolish mask, and it was considered a clownish and lowly work, done only by the most desperate among the city. Nevertheless, he performed and fought for years, and he learned all the tricks and that he must be merciless if he wanted to survive. One day he was pitted in the ring with an old adversary of his, a man new to the gladiatorial contests. John beat the other easily and showed him his face, the only one to ever know John was the greatest of them all, although the work was demeaning and ugly.
After that contest, John came home to me. I had returned to sleeping and couldn’t open my eyelids, but I knew John was there. John lay with me on the bridge fragment, and we were both at ease. After that, I was different, at peace though we were isolated from The Inspired Ones. We were now going to have a baby, but no one had children in that city. We didn’t care that we were unlike everyone in all the world. We wanted to fly anyway.
As I was waking from this dream, I took John’s hand to lead him from the bridge, and we climbed the face of the tallest building of the city and came to the rooftop. There I spread my arms, and John understood and spread his arms, too, and we flew away.
.
I was lying on my back slightly inclined, but flat, and I remember that my hair was long as in real life and strands of it blown across my face. I was outdoors, and a group of young people, male and female, were gathered casually around to look at me, but though I could see them faintly, I could not open my eyes. In sleep, I realized it was sleep that held my eyelids closed, and it was a pleasant sensation, sleep, that is. I felt secure in my distance from the group, as though they could not harm me, although I lay vulnerable to them as they stood peering down at me.
Then a young man joined them. His name was John, and he noticed me right away as he approached the group. He had a kind look, not handsome, but he had dark hair in a thick mess around his face. The others thought I was of no use, but John did not dismiss me as lightly, and he knelt beside me to study my face. I slept on at ease. The interest of the others waned, and they began to wander away. Gently a breeze began, and it grew stronger. I rose and spread my arms, and the wind caught me up, lifting me at least twenty feet into the air. Immediately, John followed my example, and suddenly we were both flying in a blue sky above the Kansas fields. At first the other young people were astonished, then inspired, and they all, too, raised their arms and allowed the wind to lift them into flight. Soon, the great group of us was flying higher toward the setting sun. John always remained near me.
The sun set, and we saw in the distance the lights of a city closely packed with skyscrapers, lit in a myriad of colored lights. We flew into the evening city, but as we settled lower between its buildings, we were cut off from the wind, and we lost our ability to fly. Try as we might, we couldn’t find our way out of the city again. We were trapped, wandering, a people separate from the native inhabitants of the city. They called us “The Inspired Ones,” but ignored us otherwise and didn’t understand our need to be away from the streets and buildings. We wanted to fly again!
John was always with me.
One night while crossing on a bridge across a river, we looked into the night sky and our people saw a terrible accident between two aircraft occur. One of the planes plummeted from the sky toward the river. Our people scattered, and I tried to avoid the crash, as well, but it was as though doomed for me. The planed veered in my direction, but luckily landed in the water before reaching me. Thinking I was safe, I turned to John, and then I saw a small, mechanical apparatus leave the downed airplane. Swiftly, it flew over the water toward me and pricked me in the bare heel with a needle. It was only a small pain, and I thought little of it, then both were gone, plane and device. I was with John. We turned to continue across the bridge, but we found it broken by the crash, and we were stranded on a fragment in the midst of the river, while our people were safely on the farther shore. When we asked for their help to cross, they looked at us askance. Something had changed. None of the others wanted anything to do with John and me, and they left us on the bridge fragment, floating on the river, to make do for ourselves.
We lived on the bridge fragment, and John went everyday to make a living performing as a gladiator, but it was not glorious work. His face was always hidden behind a foolish mask, and it was considered a clownish and lowly work, done only by the most desperate among the city. Nevertheless, he performed and fought for years, and he learned all the tricks and that he must be merciless if he wanted to survive. One day he was pitted in the ring with an old adversary of his, a man new to the gladiatorial contests. John beat the other easily and showed him his face, the only one to ever know John was the greatest of them all, although the work was demeaning and ugly.
After that contest, John came home to me. I had returned to sleeping and couldn’t open my eyelids, but I knew John was there. John lay with me on the bridge fragment, and we were both at ease. After that, I was different, at peace though we were isolated from The Inspired Ones. We were now going to have a baby, but no one had children in that city. We didn’t care that we were unlike everyone in all the world. We wanted to fly anyway.
As I was waking from this dream, I took John’s hand to lead him from the bridge, and we climbed the face of the tallest building of the city and came to the rooftop. There I spread my arms, and John understood and spread his arms, too, and we flew away.
Monday, February 16, 2009
For Love and Happiness and Hope!
Dedicated to Krissy and Tina. I'll never forget the fun we had. You made me love you.
Thanks to Tracie the Red for finding this.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Prop 8: Legislating Against Love
Everywhere I'm reading of this terrible result in California on Prop 8 and in Arizona on Prop 102. Ever since the election, I've wanted to speak up. In small ways, I've done this, and I'll continue to support those I know who are intimately affected. I've also wanted to place something here on my blog in a "consciousness raising" effort, as Pico puts it. Much has been said, and the effects experienced by those who are mourning, thus we begin to understand the negative impact as well as the level of injustice perpetrated against people who are our friends and our family members.
Below are links to Pico's excellent essays on the subject, followed by a blog post written by a friend who lives in California, once legally married to her true love, now wondering what it all means.
Pico's Blog, Wild Chihuahuas
Individual Essays on the Topic:
That Straight Blind Spot
The Marriage War: Strategy Considerations
Gay Marriage, Immigrants and the Border Lands
Krissy's blog:
"A can of worms…
The blog that I started to write at 5am would have been very different than the one I am writing now. I went down to the county office this morning to get our official marriage certificate since we had not done that yet. As I sit and ponder this paper in front of me that states that I am legally married and as I lay awake all night last night and think...
It is currently legal for same sex couples to marry in California. All documentation has been changed to "Party A" and "Party B" instead of husband and wife, ceremony wording changed to be all encompassing, marriage equality is the status quo if you will.
All night I thought about things I wished I could have said to the "Yes on 8" people. How can you people vote for discrimination? Do they not see it is discrimination, plain as day? How can you vote to eliminate rights based on a Judeo-Christian definition of marriage (separation of church and state!)? How has my marriage negatively affected your life? What on earth do your signs mean that Yes on 8 is about religious freedom and parental rights?
...It's not 100% passed, but if passed, this AMENDS the state constitution to define marriage. A state court will NOT be allowed to declare this unconstitutional. "By adding the language of Proposition 8 to the state Constitution, which is the highest source of law in the state, the California courts would be required to uphold traditional marriage." (taken from the yes on 8 peoples website)
TO ME THIS MEANS -- SUPREME COURT HERE WE COME
You want a fight you stupid ignorant people, you got one. We had the right to legally marry. You have voted to amend a state constitution to ELIMINATE THAT RIGHT.
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that:"no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Similar to how Brown v. Board of Education overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of separate but equal, I have to have some faith that so shall this be overturned (hopefully in sooner than in 58 years). That marriage v. domestic partnership, segregation could you call it? Separate but supposedly equal? ...shall not prevail."
.
.
Permission was granted to reprint this blog post. Thanks to Krissy for sharing and for her efforts to defeat this amendment. Thanks also to Pico for his continuing insight, passion and talent in sharing both.
Below are links to Pico's excellent essays on the subject, followed by a blog post written by a friend who lives in California, once legally married to her true love, now wondering what it all means.
Pico's Blog, Wild Chihuahuas
Individual Essays on the Topic:
That Straight Blind Spot
The Marriage War: Strategy Considerations
Gay Marriage, Immigrants and the Border Lands
Krissy's blog:
"A can of worms…
The blog that I started to write at 5am would have been very different than the one I am writing now. I went down to the county office this morning to get our official marriage certificate since we had not done that yet. As I sit and ponder this paper in front of me that states that I am legally married and as I lay awake all night last night and think...
It is currently legal for same sex couples to marry in California. All documentation has been changed to "Party A" and "Party B" instead of husband and wife, ceremony wording changed to be all encompassing, marriage equality is the status quo if you will.
All night I thought about things I wished I could have said to the "Yes on 8" people. How can you people vote for discrimination? Do they not see it is discrimination, plain as day? How can you vote to eliminate rights based on a Judeo-Christian definition of marriage (separation of church and state!)? How has my marriage negatively affected your life? What on earth do your signs mean that Yes on 8 is about religious freedom and parental rights?
...It's not 100% passed, but if passed, this AMENDS the state constitution to define marriage. A state court will NOT be allowed to declare this unconstitutional. "By adding the language of Proposition 8 to the state Constitution, which is the highest source of law in the state, the California courts would be required to uphold traditional marriage." (taken from the yes on 8 peoples website)
TO ME THIS MEANS -- SUPREME COURT HERE WE COME
You want a fight you stupid ignorant people, you got one. We had the right to legally marry. You have voted to amend a state constitution to ELIMINATE THAT RIGHT.
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that:"no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Similar to how Brown v. Board of Education overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of separate but equal, I have to have some faith that so shall this be overturned (hopefully in sooner than in 58 years). That marriage v. domestic partnership, segregation could you call it? Separate but supposedly equal? ...shall not prevail."
.
.
Permission was granted to reprint this blog post. Thanks to Krissy for sharing and for her efforts to defeat this amendment. Thanks also to Pico for his continuing insight, passion and talent in sharing both.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Love, Compassion, Peace...
An excerpt from the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
University Aula, Oslo, 10 December 1989
As a Buddhist monk, my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share. Although I have found my own Buddhist religion helpful in generating love and compassion, even for those we consider our enemies, I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion.
With the ever growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment.
I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different the ends are the same.
As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.
I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.
University Aula, Oslo, 10 December 1989
As a Buddhist monk, my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share. Although I have found my own Buddhist religion helpful in generating love and compassion, even for those we consider our enemies, I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion.
With the ever growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment.
I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different the ends are the same.
As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.
I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Stone Hearts
Woe to that heart
Who cannot sense
the beauty in music!
Never waste your time
Discussing love’s ways
With a stone heart.
Strangers to love
Are not invited
To the Spiritual Concert.
Only those who burn
Will give off smoke.
Sa΄dī (1207-1291)
Who cannot sense
the beauty in music!
Never waste your time
Discussing love’s ways
With a stone heart.
Strangers to love
Are not invited
To the Spiritual Concert.
Only those who burn
Will give off smoke.
Sa΄dī (1207-1291)
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Remember that...
...love is all you need.
Ringo looks sweet in lavendar, no? Was that a cameo by Mick?!
Ringo looks sweet in lavendar, no? Was that a cameo by Mick?!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
IF I WERE TICKLED BY THE RUB OF LOVE
I must be getting old, because I think (feel) about love too much these days and give it much more credence than when I was younger. It's a strange thing we suffer, that the more we love, the more we long for love. [credence: belief as to the truth of something]
From Collected Poems, 1932-1952, If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love...about love (the sticky kind), I suppose, but as much about mortality. That's Dylan, always complicated, always outrageous. Audio of this poem, recited by Dylan Thomas, here.
IF I WERE TICKLED BY THE RUB OF LOVE
If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.
Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.
If I were tickled by the hatching hair,
The winging bone that sprouted in the heels,
The itch of man upon the baby's thigh,
I would not fear the gallows nor the axe
Nor the crossed sticks of war.
Shall it be male or female? say the fingers
That chalk the walls with green girls and their men.
I would not fear the muscling-in of love
If I were tickled by the urchin hungers
Rehearsing heat upon a raw-edged nerve.
I would not fear the devil in the loin
Nor the outspoken grave.
If I were tickled by the lovers' rub
That wipes away not crow's-foot nor the lock
Of sick old manhood on the fallen jaws,
Time and the crabs and the sweethearting crib
Would leave me cold as butter for the flies,
The sea of scums could drown me as it broke
Dead on the sweethearts' toes.
This world is half the devil's and my own,
Daft with the drug that's smoking in a girl
And curling round the bud that forks her eye.
An old man's shank one-marrowed with my bone,
And all the herrings smelling in the sea,
I set and watch the worm beneath my nail
Wearing the quick away.
And that's the rub, the only rub that tickles.
The knobbly ape that swings along his sex
From damp love-darkness and the nurse's twist
Can neer raise the midnight of a chuckle,
Nor when he finds a beauty in the breast
Of lover, mother, lovers, or his six
Feet in the rubbing dust.
And what's the rub? Death's feather on the nerve?
Your mouth, my love, the thistle in the kiss?
My Jack of Christ born thorny on the tree?
The words of death are dryer than his stiff,
My wordy wounds are printed with your hair.
I would be tickled by the rub that is:
Man be my metaphor.
From Collected Poems, 1932-1952, If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love...about love (the sticky kind), I suppose, but as much about mortality. That's Dylan, always complicated, always outrageous. Audio of this poem, recited by Dylan Thomas, here.
IF I WERE TICKLED BY THE RUB OF LOVE
If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.
Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.
If I were tickled by the hatching hair,
The winging bone that sprouted in the heels,
The itch of man upon the baby's thigh,
I would not fear the gallows nor the axe
Nor the crossed sticks of war.
Shall it be male or female? say the fingers
That chalk the walls with green girls and their men.
I would not fear the muscling-in of love
If I were tickled by the urchin hungers
Rehearsing heat upon a raw-edged nerve.
I would not fear the devil in the loin
Nor the outspoken grave.
If I were tickled by the lovers' rub
That wipes away not crow's-foot nor the lock
Of sick old manhood on the fallen jaws,
Time and the crabs and the sweethearting crib
Would leave me cold as butter for the flies,
The sea of scums could drown me as it broke
Dead on the sweethearts' toes.
This world is half the devil's and my own,
Daft with the drug that's smoking in a girl
And curling round the bud that forks her eye.
An old man's shank one-marrowed with my bone,
And all the herrings smelling in the sea,
I set and watch the worm beneath my nail
Wearing the quick away.
And that's the rub, the only rub that tickles.
The knobbly ape that swings along his sex
From damp love-darkness and the nurse's twist
Can neer raise the midnight of a chuckle,
Nor when he finds a beauty in the breast
Of lover, mother, lovers, or his six
Feet in the rubbing dust.
And what's the rub? Death's feather on the nerve?
Your mouth, my love, the thistle in the kiss?
My Jack of Christ born thorny on the tree?
The words of death are dryer than his stiff,
My wordy wounds are printed with your hair.
I would be tickled by the rub that is:
Man be my metaphor.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Dylan's Letters
O, my. I just received my copy of Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters. I read the front, inside jacket, and I'm setting it aside...now...before it goes too far. Either it's the force of Dylan's genius or my flimsy constitution, but I'm not sturdy enough to read these letters, maybe when I'm older. On the other hand, I find myself not one whit less manic than thirty years ago. Emotions at which I scoffed as trivial, I now labor under as profound. I may weep and laugh myself, progressively, into death.
"She was watching CSI, burst into tears," Mr. Rivergarth will explain to the coroner, "then she was gone. I suspected something was wrong when she laughed at the rolling head, but it wasn't all that unusual; I once found her swooning with love over a tomato. She was especially gleeful over semicolons."
"Remember me?" Dylan Thomas wrote to a friend in Indiana. "Round, red, robustly raddled, a bulging Apple among poets. Hard as nails made of cream cheese, gap-toothed, balding, noisome, a great collector of dust and a magnet for moths, mad for beer, frightened of priests, women, Chicago, writers, distance, time, children, geese, death, in love, frightened of love."
No, I'll set this aside for a few days and see how it goes. Definitely not ready to be intimate with Dylan. Definitely not.
"She was watching CSI, burst into tears," Mr. Rivergarth will explain to the coroner, "then she was gone. I suspected something was wrong when she laughed at the rolling head, but it wasn't all that unusual; I once found her swooning with love over a tomato. She was especially gleeful over semicolons."
"Remember me?" Dylan Thomas wrote to a friend in Indiana. "Round, red, robustly raddled, a bulging Apple among poets. Hard as nails made of cream cheese, gap-toothed, balding, noisome, a great collector of dust and a magnet for moths, mad for beer, frightened of priests, women, Chicago, writers, distance, time, children, geese, death, in love, frightened of love."
No, I'll set this aside for a few days and see how it goes. Definitely not ready to be intimate with Dylan. Definitely not.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
"cut the rose"
I'm really getting worried about the rose now. Fair Welcoming has been imprisoned in the tower with guards set around, and our hero has once kissed the rose, but he can't get near again without Fair Welcoming. In despair, he's turned for advice to Friend, and I'm not sure I like Friend's advice at all! I'm almost afraid to read on.
From Romance of the Rose (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, trans. Charles Dahlberg), lines 7669-7694. My italics below.
And if you can come to the point where you might keep them [the guards] apart, so that the place may be so convenient that you need not fear that anyone will come up unexpectedly, and if Fair Welcoming, who is now imprisoned for your sake, may escape, then, when he has turned on you the fair appearance that he can--and he knows very well how to receive handsome people--then you should cut the rose, even though you see Resistance himself, who receives you only to abuse you, or even though Shame and Fear grumble at your deed. They only pretend to get angry, and they defend themselves lazily, since in their very defense they give themselves up conquered, as it will then seem to you. Although you see Fear and Shame blush, and Resistance become agitated, or all three lament and groan, count the whole thing as not worth a husk. When place and time and season occur, cut the rose by force and show that you are a man, for, as long as someone knows how to exercise it, nothing could please them [?] so much as such force.
From Romance of the Rose (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, trans. Charles Dahlberg), lines 7669-7694. My italics below.
And if you can come to the point where you might keep them [the guards] apart, so that the place may be so convenient that you need not fear that anyone will come up unexpectedly, and if Fair Welcoming, who is now imprisoned for your sake, may escape, then, when he has turned on you the fair appearance that he can--and he knows very well how to receive handsome people--then you should cut the rose, even though you see Resistance himself, who receives you only to abuse you, or even though Shame and Fear grumble at your deed. They only pretend to get angry, and they defend themselves lazily, since in their very defense they give themselves up conquered, as it will then seem to you. Although you see Fear and Shame blush, and Resistance become agitated, or all three lament and groan, count the whole thing as not worth a husk. When place and time and season occur, cut the rose by force and show that you are a man, for, as long as someone knows how to exercise it, nothing could please them [?] so much as such force.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Last Night and To-night
I added the blog Inspiration and Creative Thoughts to my blogroll on the merit of this poem posted there.
Last night, from the palm of the love-selling beauty,
I drank the wine of union until the morning.
Tonight, with a hundred thousand screams and cries,
I wait--when will there be another night like that?
-Anvari
(1125-1189)
The above is by a Persian poet, but it reminds me of one of Emily Dickinson's poems, equally heart-rending.
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port, --
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!
What do you think? Does Emily have the heart of a Persian poet? I think so.
Last night, from the palm of the love-selling beauty,
I drank the wine of union until the morning.
Tonight, with a hundred thousand screams and cries,
I wait--when will there be another night like that?
-Anvari
(1125-1189)
The above is by a Persian poet, but it reminds me of one of Emily Dickinson's poems, equally heart-rending.
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port, --
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!
What do you think? Does Emily have the heart of a Persian poet? I think so.
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