There’ll come a time

‘This can’t last. This misery can’t last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts, really. Neither 

happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There’ll come a time in the future when I shan’t mind about this 

anymore. When I can look back and say quite peacefully how silly I was. No, no, I don’t want that time to come, ever. 

I want to remember every minute. Always. Always, to the end of my days.’

(excerpt from Brief Encounter - UK, 1945; a film by David Lean; starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard)

A lover asked his beloved

A lover asked his beloved,

Do you love yourself more
than you love me?




The beloved replied,
I have died to myself
and I live for you.

I’ve disappeared from myself

and my attributes.
I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learning,
but from knowing you
I have become a scholar.

I have lost all my strength,

but from your power
I am able.

If I love myself
I love you.
If I love you
I love myself.

(Rumi: Do you love me?)

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

*

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still.

*

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

T.S. Eliot: Ash Wednesday (fragments)

A time when for blue rain I long

*

Afternoon with a Flower Lady

'The still, sad music of humanity'

The title of this post is a verse from William Wordsworth's poem: Music of Nature and Mind.

Winter solitude

Winter solitude--

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

Matsuo Basho: Winter solitude

Red was your colour

Red was your colour.

If not red, then white. But red

Was what you wrapped around you.

Blood red.

And outside the window

Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail

As the skin on blood.

Ted Hughes: Red (fragment)

Reflections of possibility

There's a piece on the chair

A piece in the hall

A nice piece of me

Stuck to the wall

Divide and conquer

The jigsaw in you

Has left me asunder

All over the room

There's a piece by the clock

Clinging awkwardly to time

There's a piece at the piano

Clinging stubbornly to rhyme

There's a fun piece of me 

In a crack in the floor

An innocent piece

Who walked out the door

Call me a doctor

Or a structural engineer

Draft me a past and a future

That consert to adhere

Give me a pill that makes cohesion

A pharmalogical thing

Bring me the tape and the twine

The blueprint design

To fit the scraps and the threads

To the feet and the legs

There's a piece that was pretty

For a moment or two

But my mouth and my lips

Are somehow askew

A piece of a hero is

Behind the TV

The piece with the glue

Is looking for pieces of me

There's a piece in Detroit

A piece in LA

New York is a critic

She's funny that way

There's a piece prone to panic

A big piece is blue

All the pieces agree

The best piece went with you

In fragments and tatters, scattered

All over the road

Each piece has the other

But no pieces is a whole

Little maps in their pockets,

Reflections of possibility

The pieces pick themselves up

Dust themselves off

And start all over

Again

Patricia Barber: Pieces 

Take a look at me now, it is the season of rain

***

The day will never dawn again

Îmi amintesc de tine. Oraşul ăsta era croit pe măsura dragostei. Tu erai croit chiar pe măsura trupului meu. 
Presimţeam că într-o zi ai să te năpusteşti peste mine.

I remember you. This city was tailor-made for love. You fit my body like a glove.
I had no doubt you’d cross my path one day.

Te aşteptam cu o nesfârşită nerăbdare, calmă. Devorează-mă. 

Deformează-mă după chipul tău, pentru ca nimeni altcineva, după tine, să nu mai priceapă cauza unei dorinţe atât de mari.

I waited for you calmly, with boundless impatience. Devour me. 
Deform me to your likeness, so that no one after you will ever again understand the reason for so much desire.

O să rămânem singuri, dragostea mea. Noaptea se va sfârşi. Nu se va mai face ziuă pentru nimeni. 

We’ll be alone, my love. Night will never end. The day will never dawn again on anyone. 

N-o să mai avem nimic altceva de făcut, nimic altceva decât să plângem ziua care a murit. 

Va trece timp. Timp doar.

There’ll be nothing else for us to do but mourn the departed day. 

Time will pass. Only time.

Şi va vei timp. Va veni timp. Când nu vom mai şti deloc să numim ce ne uneşte.
Numele se va şterge treptat din memoria noastră. Apoi, va dispărea complet.

And a time will come when we can no longer name what it is that binds us. 
Its name will gradually be erased from our memory until it vanishes completely.

(Marguerite Duras: Hiroshima, mon amour. A book made into film by Alain Resnais.

Translated into Romanian by Ileana Cantuniari; English translation @ The Criterion Collection)

Over the valley

*

Spring rain (III)