Thursday, November 22, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
pablo neruda II
TO ENVY
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I plucked the envious ones, one by one
From my shirt, from my skin
I saw them all around me every day
I brooded on them
In the transparent kingdom
Of a drop of water.
I loved them as much as I could, in their misfortune
Or in the equanimity of their labors,
And even now I have no idea
How and when
They replaced lilies and lemon trees
With a silent frown
Or, where an ordinary smile frown
Or, where an ordinary smile should have been
A gash set in.
That gash of a mouth!
All that honey that was replaced!
The heavy wind of age
Brought in its flight
Dust, food,
Seeds split off from love,
Petals wound with snakes,
Cruel ash of dead hatred,
And everything
Flourished in the wounded mouth.
A web of passions started up
And the woeful dregs of being forgotten
Gave root to the spreading tentacles,
The violet medusa of envy.
When you catch fish, Pedro, what do you do?
Do you throw them back, rip up your net,
Close your eyes to the urges
In the vast web of procreation?
I confess to my own sin!
Whatever I took from the sea,
Coral, fish scales,
Rainbow tail,
Fish or word or silvered leaf,
Or even an underwater stone,
I raised it up, I gave it the light of my spirit.
Fisherman myself, I gathered whatever was lost,
And my efforts harmed no one.
I did no harm, or maybe I did to death
Someone who wanted the light himself, and got instead
Me, emptying myself in song,
Which silenced his untamed ways,
Someone who didn’t want
To swim in my breast,
And cut out
On his own,
But the wind come
And carried off his voice,
And they were never born,
Those who longed to see light.
The tree is part of the forest, but perhaps a man
Can grow up ignoring
The bent of everything around him,
And quite suddenly
Its not just roots but darkness,
Not just fruit but shadow,
Shadow and night which time and foliage
Left behind as they grew,
Till in the close dampness
Where the seeds expected to swell
There is no trace of the fingering light.
The gift of the sun is denied
The hungry seed
And deep in darkness the spirit
Unwinds in its own contortions.
Perhaps I don’t know, perhaps I didn’t know,
Perhaps I never know.
Preoccupied as I was, I had no time
To see, or hear, or seek out or feel
All that was happening, and for loves sake
I believe my obligation was to sing,
To sing as I grew and left my life behind,
Out of the pain of the struggle.
It was my dedication, my function,
Alongside carpenters in the morning,
Drinking at night with the horsemen,
To pour out my song in writing,
And I thought I was doing it,
On fire or far away
From the fire,
Close to the source or out of the ashes;
I thought that by giving all I had,
Jabbing myself to keep myself awake,
Giving my whole vision, my whole time, my while life,
My blood and all my thinking,
And what I learned from every thing,
The generosity of carnations,
Wood and its sweet-smelling peace,
Love itself, rivers, death,
All I was given by the city, by the earth
All I gathered in from a green wave,
Or a house left empty by war,
Or a lamp I found lit
In the middle of autumn,
And men too, and their machinery,
Working men and their troubles,
Or the ship steering through the fog—
All that,more than all, all that I owed
To every man for the life in him,
I did what I could to repay, and I had
No other currency but my own blood.
So what do I do now with this man and this other?what can I do to give back
What I never stole? Why did the spring
Brings me yellow crown
And who, aggrieved and puzzled,
Searched for it in the forest?
Its perhaps too late to uncover
The missing clarity of truth
And pour it into his bitter cup.
Maybe time has hardened his voise,
His mouth, his righteousness,
And the clock cannot turn back
To bring us together in tenderness.
Raw hatred took its time
Making an outpost of its rage
And prepared for me a savage crown
With rusty, bloodstained spikes.
It wasn’t pride that made me keep
My heart at a distance from such terror
Nor did I waste
On revenge
Or the pursuit of power
The forces that came from my selfish grief’s
Or my accumulate joys.
Its was something else-my helplessness.
It was because with every taunt
The day
That dawned
Detached me from new hurt,
Bound my hands, and lichen
Grew on the stone of my breast.
I was overgrown by creeping plants,
Small green hands covered me,
And I took to the woods, unfisted,
Or slept in care of the clover.
Oh, I am most careful with
My swords keen edge, I am slow
To anger,
I rejoice in
My hard nature,
But when the turtledove in the tower
Croons, and the potter stretches his hand
To his clay, raising a bowl,
I tremble, I am pierced through
By the sharp air.
My heart takes off with the dove
It rains, and I go out to try the shower.
I go out to the being I love, naked presence
Of sun on a rock,
Everything growing, growing, unware
That it cannot put an end to its own growing;
The wheat going to grain, multiplying
Far beyond reason, so it was ordained,
Without order or instruction;
And among undivided things,
Perhaps this secret urge,
This agitation of bread and sand,
Imposed its own conditions,
And I am not me but living matter
Fermenting and forming its own shapes
In the fruitfulness of every day.
Perhaps envy, when it flashed
Its knife at me
And became the profession of certain people,
Gave to my body an extra food
Which I needed in my work,
A fierce acid which gave me
Sharp stimulation for an odd hour,
Corrosive tongue against the water.
Perhaps envy, a star
Made from broken glass
Fallen
In a bitter street,
Was a medal pinned on
The bread I bring, singing, everyday,
And my good bakes heart.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I plucked the envious ones, one by one
From my shirt, from my skin
I saw them all around me every day
I brooded on them
In the transparent kingdom
Of a drop of water.
I loved them as much as I could, in their misfortune
Or in the equanimity of their labors,
And even now I have no idea
How and when
They replaced lilies and lemon trees
With a silent frown
Or, where an ordinary smile frown
Or, where an ordinary smile should have been
A gash set in.
That gash of a mouth!
All that honey that was replaced!
The heavy wind of age
Brought in its flight
Dust, food,
Seeds split off from love,
Petals wound with snakes,
Cruel ash of dead hatred,
And everything
Flourished in the wounded mouth.
A web of passions started up
And the woeful dregs of being forgotten
Gave root to the spreading tentacles,
The violet medusa of envy.
When you catch fish, Pedro, what do you do?
Do you throw them back, rip up your net,
Close your eyes to the urges
In the vast web of procreation?
I confess to my own sin!
Whatever I took from the sea,
Coral, fish scales,
Rainbow tail,
Fish or word or silvered leaf,
Or even an underwater stone,
I raised it up, I gave it the light of my spirit.
Fisherman myself, I gathered whatever was lost,
And my efforts harmed no one.
I did no harm, or maybe I did to death
Someone who wanted the light himself, and got instead
Me, emptying myself in song,
Which silenced his untamed ways,
Someone who didn’t want
To swim in my breast,
And cut out
On his own,
But the wind come
And carried off his voice,
And they were never born,
Those who longed to see light.
The tree is part of the forest, but perhaps a man
Can grow up ignoring
The bent of everything around him,
And quite suddenly
Its not just roots but darkness,
Not just fruit but shadow,
Shadow and night which time and foliage
Left behind as they grew,
Till in the close dampness
Where the seeds expected to swell
There is no trace of the fingering light.
The gift of the sun is denied
The hungry seed
And deep in darkness the spirit
Unwinds in its own contortions.
Perhaps I don’t know, perhaps I didn’t know,
Perhaps I never know.
Preoccupied as I was, I had no time
To see, or hear, or seek out or feel
All that was happening, and for loves sake
I believe my obligation was to sing,
To sing as I grew and left my life behind,
Out of the pain of the struggle.
It was my dedication, my function,
Alongside carpenters in the morning,
Drinking at night with the horsemen,
To pour out my song in writing,
And I thought I was doing it,
On fire or far away
From the fire,
Close to the source or out of the ashes;
I thought that by giving all I had,
Jabbing myself to keep myself awake,
Giving my whole vision, my whole time, my while life,
My blood and all my thinking,
And what I learned from every thing,
The generosity of carnations,
Wood and its sweet-smelling peace,
Love itself, rivers, death,
All I was given by the city, by the earth
All I gathered in from a green wave,
Or a house left empty by war,
Or a lamp I found lit
In the middle of autumn,
And men too, and their machinery,
Working men and their troubles,
Or the ship steering through the fog—
All that,more than all, all that I owed
To every man for the life in him,
I did what I could to repay, and I had
No other currency but my own blood.
So what do I do now with this man and this other?what can I do to give back
What I never stole? Why did the spring
Brings me yellow crown
And who, aggrieved and puzzled,
Searched for it in the forest?
Its perhaps too late to uncover
The missing clarity of truth
And pour it into his bitter cup.
Maybe time has hardened his voise,
His mouth, his righteousness,
And the clock cannot turn back
To bring us together in tenderness.
Raw hatred took its time
Making an outpost of its rage
And prepared for me a savage crown
With rusty, bloodstained spikes.
It wasn’t pride that made me keep
My heart at a distance from such terror
Nor did I waste
On revenge
Or the pursuit of power
The forces that came from my selfish grief’s
Or my accumulate joys.
Its was something else-my helplessness.
It was because with every taunt
The day
That dawned
Detached me from new hurt,
Bound my hands, and lichen
Grew on the stone of my breast.
I was overgrown by creeping plants,
Small green hands covered me,
And I took to the woods, unfisted,
Or slept in care of the clover.
Oh, I am most careful with
My swords keen edge, I am slow
To anger,
I rejoice in
My hard nature,
But when the turtledove in the tower
Croons, and the potter stretches his hand
To his clay, raising a bowl,
I tremble, I am pierced through
By the sharp air.
My heart takes off with the dove
It rains, and I go out to try the shower.
I go out to the being I love, naked presence
Of sun on a rock,
Everything growing, growing, unware
That it cannot put an end to its own growing;
The wheat going to grain, multiplying
Far beyond reason, so it was ordained,
Without order or instruction;
And among undivided things,
Perhaps this secret urge,
This agitation of bread and sand,
Imposed its own conditions,
And I am not me but living matter
Fermenting and forming its own shapes
In the fruitfulness of every day.
Perhaps envy, when it flashed
Its knife at me
And became the profession of certain people,
Gave to my body an extra food
Which I needed in my work,
A fierce acid which gave me
Sharp stimulation for an odd hour,
Corrosive tongue against the water.
Perhaps envy, a star
Made from broken glass
Fallen
In a bitter street,
Was a medal pinned on
The bread I bring, singing, everyday,
And my good bakes heart.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
pablo neruda I
APPOINTMENT WITH WINTER
I have waited for this winter as no winter
Has been waited for by any man before me.
Everyone else had an appointment with joy.
I was the only one waiting for you, dark time.
Is this one like other winters, father and mother, coal fire,
And the neighing of a horse in the street?
Is this one like a winter in the future,
An absolute cold, in which we don’t exist,
And nature not realizing we are gone?
No. I laid claim to a solitude surrounded
By a great sash of sheer rain
And here in my own ocean winter found me with the wind
Flying like a bird between two regions of water
Everything was ready for the sky to weep.
The vast sky with a single eyelid
Let fall its tears like glacial swords
And the world shuttered up like an empty
Hotel room: sky, rain, and spaces.
Center of things, vessel without latitude or end!
Blue heart of the spread water!
Between air and water quivers and dances
Some body seeking
Its transparent nourishment
As I arrive and enter with my hat,
My dusty boots
Worn out by the thirsty roads.
Nobody had arrived
For the solitary ceremony.
I can scarcely feel alone
Now that I feel the pureness of the place.
I know I have limitless depth, like the well
Which filled us with dread as children;
And that, surrounded by transparency
And the throbbing of the needles,
I am in touch with winter,
With its overwhelming power,
Power of its shadowy element,
With the spread and splash
Of its late-blooming rose,
Until, suddenly, light has gone,
And under the roof
Of the dark house
I shall go on speaking to the earth,
Although nobody replies.
Who doesn’t wish for a stubborn spirit?
Who doesn’t sharpened the edge of his soul?
When, just as our eyes are opened, we see hate,
And just after learning to walk, we are tripped,
And just for wanting to love, we are hated,
And for no more than touching, we are hurt,
Which of us hasn’t started to arm himself,
To make himself sharp, somehow,
Like a knife, to pay back hurt?
The sensitive one tries to be cynical,
The gentlest reaches for his sword.
The one who only wanted to be loved
At least once, with the ghost of a kiss,
Turns cold and aloof, and doesn’t look at the girl
Who was waiting for him, open and unhappy.
There is nothing to do. In the streets,
The set up stalls selling masks
And the dealer tries on everyone
Twilight faces, face of a tiger,
Faces sober or virtuous, faces of ancestors,
Until the moon dies
And in the lampless night we are equal.
I had a face which I lost in the sand,
A pale and wistful paper face,
And it was hard for my spirit to change its skin
Till it found its true nature,
And could claim that sad right:
To wait for winter, alone, unwitnessed,
To wait, under the wings
Of the dark sea-cormorant,
For a wave to flow, restored
To the fullness of solitude,
To wait for and to find myself
With a touch or mouning
Or nothing:
What my reason is scarcely aware of,
My unreason, my heart, my doubts.
By now the water is so very old
That’s its new. The ancient water went,
Breaking through glass into another life,
And the sand did not save up time.
The new sea has a clean shirt.
Identity lost its mirror
And we grow by changing our ways.
Winter, don’t come along looking for me. I have left.
I belong to later, to now, when the thin rain
Arrives and unlooses
Its endless, the marriage
Of the spirit with the dripping trees,
The seas ash, the crash
Of a gold capsule in the foliage,
And my belated eyes
Preoccupied with earth, with earth alone.
With earth alone, with earth, wind, sand, and water,
Which granted me an absolute clarity.
**********************************
I have waited for this winter as no winter
Has been waited for by any man before me.
Everyone else had an appointment with joy.
I was the only one waiting for you, dark time.
Is this one like other winters, father and mother, coal fire,
And the neighing of a horse in the street?
Is this one like a winter in the future,
An absolute cold, in which we don’t exist,
And nature not realizing we are gone?
No. I laid claim to a solitude surrounded
By a great sash of sheer rain
And here in my own ocean winter found me with the wind
Flying like a bird between two regions of water
Everything was ready for the sky to weep.
The vast sky with a single eyelid
Let fall its tears like glacial swords
And the world shuttered up like an empty
Hotel room: sky, rain, and spaces.
Center of things, vessel without latitude or end!
Blue heart of the spread water!
Between air and water quivers and dances
Some body seeking
Its transparent nourishment
As I arrive and enter with my hat,
My dusty boots
Worn out by the thirsty roads.
Nobody had arrived
For the solitary ceremony.
I can scarcely feel alone
Now that I feel the pureness of the place.
I know I have limitless depth, like the well
Which filled us with dread as children;
And that, surrounded by transparency
And the throbbing of the needles,
I am in touch with winter,
With its overwhelming power,
Power of its shadowy element,
With the spread and splash
Of its late-blooming rose,
Until, suddenly, light has gone,
And under the roof
Of the dark house
I shall go on speaking to the earth,
Although nobody replies.
Who doesn’t wish for a stubborn spirit?
Who doesn’t sharpened the edge of his soul?
When, just as our eyes are opened, we see hate,
And just after learning to walk, we are tripped,
And just for wanting to love, we are hated,
And for no more than touching, we are hurt,
Which of us hasn’t started to arm himself,
To make himself sharp, somehow,
Like a knife, to pay back hurt?
The sensitive one tries to be cynical,
The gentlest reaches for his sword.
The one who only wanted to be loved
At least once, with the ghost of a kiss,
Turns cold and aloof, and doesn’t look at the girl
Who was waiting for him, open and unhappy.
There is nothing to do. In the streets,
The set up stalls selling masks
And the dealer tries on everyone
Twilight faces, face of a tiger,
Faces sober or virtuous, faces of ancestors,
Until the moon dies
And in the lampless night we are equal.
I had a face which I lost in the sand,
A pale and wistful paper face,
And it was hard for my spirit to change its skin
Till it found its true nature,
And could claim that sad right:
To wait for winter, alone, unwitnessed,
To wait, under the wings
Of the dark sea-cormorant,
For a wave to flow, restored
To the fullness of solitude,
To wait for and to find myself
With a touch or mouning
Or nothing:
What my reason is scarcely aware of,
My unreason, my heart, my doubts.
By now the water is so very old
That’s its new. The ancient water went,
Breaking through glass into another life,
And the sand did not save up time.
The new sea has a clean shirt.
Identity lost its mirror
And we grow by changing our ways.
Winter, don’t come along looking for me. I have left.
I belong to later, to now, when the thin rain
Arrives and unlooses
Its endless, the marriage
Of the spirit with the dripping trees,
The seas ash, the crash
Of a gold capsule in the foliage,
And my belated eyes
Preoccupied with earth, with earth alone.
With earth alone, with earth, wind, sand, and water,
Which granted me an absolute clarity.
**********************************
the color is blue
I once shared with somebody my thought "=(. Call it pathetic or watever! But that's exactly what i'm feeling. It's like an itchyness you suddenly want to get rid off. It's a goal without a clear objectives, or, maybe i'm still in the process of identifyng or finding it within myself. What I really like, what I really want to be. You suddenly feel that way, and if you failed to do so, you're incomplete beneath. Contentment would be the issue. Self-satisfaction is the main dilemma.
Several terms from now, i would be receiving my college diploma. *hopefully!*. My dad asks me where do I want to work, what are my plans after graduation, when i'm going to have my most-awaiting-Good news for them and stuffs like that. And me being the a-little-bit stubborn son always give them the same answer as before "I still don't know" with the main mentality at the back of my mind "it's to early to think about that". But as time flies, i'm becoming aware why my parents keep asking me the same question whenever that topic blooms from nowhere.
I realized I should be thinking about my future. I should be mature in terms of perspective about life. I'm not getting any younger! Instead i should be moving forward. I should start considering that's there reallly a life waiting for me after college! It just depends which path will i take, which opportunity will i grab, and which destiny will I embrace. Either way, it may lead to failure or success.
Questions kept lingering in my mind: " What i really want to be, what I really want to do in my life." Somehow, i got answers! (of course) I want to work after collge (who else doesn't want right?) I want to earn money on my own. Stepping out of college means more responsibility, more freedom. Freedom to choose, to speak, to decide. Maybe that's what I'm anticipating all along. I want to express myself. It's like unlocking the chains that seems to be in your bare hands for so long. I know it was for my own good. But honestly, I did wait for the time when i will be old enough to do whatever i like! to say what's on my mind, to express who I really am!
Maybe I haven't decided what plans i'm going to follow after college. I know it's one step at a time. But one thing for sure, I will follow the things that will make me happy, that will keep me satisfied. I know life is a journey, and along the path you'll you gonna picked lessons that will change or make you a better person. But I believe that happiness leads to contentment. I may not have the grandest job or the highest person paid as long as i'm happy with what i'm doin, it all goes well. =)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
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