I am recycling a poem for you, part of my daily Confluence journal:
Y yo transmitiré sin decir nada
los ecos estrellados de la ola...
- Pablo Neruda, from Deber del Poeta
Social creatures of the neighborhood gather,
one by one, to sit and watch the waves roll in.
There will be another time to jump into the water,
to splash, to play,
to catch fish and work the waves.
There will be a time, too, for leaving this place,
riding the winds and
finding inland treasures.
But for now, and here, they are content
to gather, to pause,
to gaze and ponder.
They take their place on the sand,
a few yards away from the water’s edge,
a few feet one from another,
And quietly converse without words:
There will be a time, soon enough,
to engage in raucous
playground laughter,
And there will be a time as well
to broadcast complaints
and call neighborhoods together,
But for now, and here, they are satisfied
to stop, to compose,
to start to consider.
They take their place under the sun,
pulling up one leg
in restful balance,
This is their moment of peace;
this is their poem to remember.
And there will be a time for recitations,
as there will be places without peace,
But it is enough,
here and now,
to sit and watch the waves roll in.
Jon, one of the most rarefied pleasures of my life (reflecting now at a personal, positive juncture) is the poetry we've shared. This poem, as you know, along with the mallards at the bus stop and the vagabond at Melrose Bay, is among my favorite of 'Thirty Birds'--Pablo Neruda, who informs one of the songs Joey and I most love to play: "without saying nothing", everything is both ineffable and said. Of course the Prufrockian "there will be time" plays forever on our minds, as should be: a colleague in Moscow, Oleg, who lost his lovely wife two years ago is also in this poem--you'll eventually meet him, I hope, as a fellow scholar of Eliot. More important to me, brother, is the constant care you bring to 'more-than-me'. I'm trying to reach out (rather pathetically) to friends that seem to be doing the weird dance of Marshawn Lynch right now, as I've put to very VERY rough poetry: http://lostmenagerie.blogspot.cz/2015/01/the-podium.html
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