A random encounter

I came upon this website while searching for an English translation of the song "Le temps des cerises". The website is called 'My Writings : A Collection of Things That I've Written Over the Years'. But what strikes me the most was the fact that who ever wrote all those poem was really, really, good. Unfortunately, there was little about the author you can learn from the blog. Here's one of her short poem;

Grand Canyon

The land and the sky were once in love
Behold the deep canyon
It is the scar from that romance


Right? And you have to read her love letters. I mean, who ever wrote like that these days?

But then, that's just my opinion. Because when I read her writings, I got that tingling feeling in my chest.

Opiate and tonic..

I read Lisa Kleypas new novel Crystal Cove last night and finished it in one sitting. It was 3.40 am when i went to sleep. And as always, Lisa Klepas never let me down.

My favorite phrases in the book were like this;

"You," he whispered, "are my Solomon's mine, my uncharted empire. You are the only home I need to know, the only journey I want to take, the only treasure I would die to claim. You are exotic and familiar, opiate and tonic, hard conscience and sweet temptation."

I think i died for a minute last night.

I carry your heart with me
(I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it
(anywhere I go you go,my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)

I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

by E.E. Cummings

A Poem for Your Valentine

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda
Sonnet XVII, Manana

If you forget me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

by Pablo Neruda

p/s - ahh, leave me speechless every time.

Perhaps not to be..

.. is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be.

Pablo Neruda

Touch

Touch me not lest i answer unrestrained

Assaulting battering pretending love

Or touch a lot to keep the Lion tamed

Or touch, but not too much, with hand in glove

Touch with care, each touch a velvet question

Have gestures sensed unanswered questions?

Do we respect each other situation?

Do afferent pleasures now awaken?

Touch hands and feel the pulses of the mind

Brush lips with breath to intimate a kiss

Link eye to eye to see if fancy's kind

Hear music as the measure of our bliss

Now touch my heart to stay in touch for life

Touch my soul to stay in touch forever

Pina's Song From Here to Eternity

p/s - I have been looking for this poem for a long time. Now that i found it, i must share it with you. I have a feeling that this month there will be a lot of Neruda's poem will be posted on this blog.

Poem to soothe loss

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Endymion

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"'Where hast thou stayed so long?"

Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Success is...

To laugh often and much,

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends,

To appreciate beauty,

To find the best in others,

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived,

This is to have succeeded!



~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all

And sweetest in the gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me

Emily Dickinson