miercuri, 15 aprilie 2009

Instants

If I could live again my life,
In the next - I'll try,
- to make more mistakes,
I won't try to be so perfect,
I'll be more relaxed,
I'll be more full - than I am now,
In fact, I'll take fewer things seriously,
I'll be less hygenic,
I'll take more risks,
I'll take more trips,
I'll watch more sunsets,
I'll climb more mountains,
I'll swim more rivers,
I'll go to more places - I've never been,
I'll eat more ice creams and less (lime) beans,
I'll have more real problems - and less imaginary
ones,
I was one of those people who live
prudent and prolific lives -each minute of his life,
Off course that I had moments of joy - but,
if I could go back I'll try to have only good moments,
If you don't know - that's what life is made of,
Don't lose the now!
I was one of those who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer,
without a hot-water bottle,
and without an umbrella and without a parachute,
If I could live again - I will travel light,
If I could live again - I'll try to work bare feet
at the beginning of spring till
the end of autumn,
I'll ride more carts,
I'll watch more sunrises and play with more children,
If I have the life to live - but now I am 85,
- and I know that I am dying ...
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

vineri, 27 martie 2009

Dreptul la timp

Tu ai un fel de paradis al tău
în care nu se spun cuvinte.
Uneori se mişcă dintr-un braţ
şi câteva frunze îţi cad inainte.
Cu ovalul feţei se stă înclinat
spre o lumină venind dintr-o parte
cu mult galben în ea şi multă lene,
cu trambuline pentru săritorii în moarte.
Tu ai un fel al tău senin
De-a ridica oraşele ca norii,
şi de-a muta secundele mereu
pe marginea de Sud a orei,
când aerul devine mov şi rece
şi harta serii fără margini,
şi-abia mai pot rămâne-n viaţă
mai respirând, cu ochii lungi, imagini.
Nichita Stanescu (1933-1983)

luni, 15 decembrie 2008

De-abia plecaseşi

De-abia plecaseşi.
Te-am rugat să pleci.
Te urmăream de-a lungul molatecii poteci,
Pân-ai pierit, la capăt, prin trifoi.
Nu te-ai uitat o dată înapoi!
Ţi-as fi făcut un semn, după plecare,
Dar ce-i un semn din umbră-n depărtare?
Voiam să pleci, voiam şi să rămâi.
Ai ascultat de gândul ce-l dintâi.
Nu te oprise gândul fără glas.
De ce-ai plecat? De ce-ai mai fi rămas?
Tudor Arghezi (1880-1967)

marți, 9 decembrie 2008

One art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

joi, 27 noiembrie 2008

True Love

It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there's no one here but him,
And because
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packer
Even though I am philosophically opposed to football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.

It's true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking them and the next morning I couldn't get out of bed,
He wouldn't tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he'd save me.

It's true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I had to stay home with the painters and the exterminator and the baby who was getting the chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I wouldn't let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,
And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion,
We still feel something
We can call
True love.

Judith Viorst (born in 1931)

luni, 24 noiembrie 2008

We are made one with what we touch and see

We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
With beat of systole and of diastole
One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. . . .
One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. . . .
Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature's heritors, and one
With every pulse of life that beats the air?
Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

joi, 20 noiembrie 2008

To the bridge of love

To the bridge of love,
old stone between high cliffs
eternal meeting place, red dusk,
I come with my heart.
My beloved is only water,
which is always flowing, and doesn't decieve,
which is always flowing, and doesn't change,
which is always flowing, and doesn't end.
Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958)