Little red berries

December ritual

My mother phones me and carefully tells me: ‘Don’t do any laundry tomorrow; it is the day your grandfather died’. 
She remembers all these things, important dates and certain facts. Unlike me, she knows something about sacrifice.
So I plan not to do any laundry, not to violate her beliefs as there is something immensely beautiful in the way she 

makes the request, in the way she remembers dates and performs old rituals. Although quite disobeying by nature, 
I agree to her call of duty.

I don’t want to know the date, I actually don’t know it, I refuse to memorize it, although my memory reminds me that
 it was winter when it happened, it was December and I was away, in another country, surrounded by others, shielded 
from grief and rituals. I was told after the funeral, days later, when my parents considered it was the time. 
That’s why I don’t know the date and I refuse to ask or to remember. 
It is like it didn't even happen.

Two and two and two more

2 (III)

2 (II)

2 (I)

Autumn encounter

You hid your face and kept silence

[I had in mind a very beautiful poem for this post, Nathan Alterman's The Cry, which I couldn't find anywhere on the internet in its English version. 

The Romanian translation is too cheesy, even for this blog. Until I return to the UK, and look for it at the Senate House, this post will do without it. 

You might, anyhow, consider reading Amos Oz's novel, Black Box, the inspiration for this post. ;-)]

[Now, on a second thought, this post is better without any words, any poem, any artifice. R. said that there is nothing erotic about this post and
that the images present a game between girls. The atmosphere is intimate but not erotic.
 I might add that I didn't want them erotic in any way. I wanted them simple, sad, and silent. ;-)]



  

The seasons that pass over my fields

Your pain is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder
at the daily miracles of your life, your pain
would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your
heart, even as you have always accepted
the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the
physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink
his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided
by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter
has moistened with His own sacred tears. 

(Khalil Gibran: Your pain is....)

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.