HARVEST IN STILLNESS - a fisher in "suba." Taken on January 11, 2009 near Virac Central Elementary School. (GSR)Verses are not, as people imagine, simply feelings (we have those soon enough); they are experiences.
In order to write a single poem, one must see many cities, and people, and things; one must get to know animals and the flight of birds, and the gesture of flowers make when they open to the morning.
One must be able to return to roads in unknown regions; to unexpected encounters, to partings long foreseen; to days of childhood that are still unexplained, and to parents whom one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was joy for somebody else); to childhood illnesses that begin so strangely with such a number of profound and grave transformations, to days spent in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to oceans, to nights of travel that rushed along loftily and flew with all the stars – and still it is not enough to be able to think all of this.
There must be memories of many nights of love, each one unlike the other, or the screams of women in labor, and of women in childbed, light and blanched and sleeping, shutting themselves in.
But one must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in a room with open windows and fitful noises. And still it is not yet enough, to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many and one must have immense patience to wait till they come again. For the memories themselves are nothing. Not till they have returned to blood within us, to glance and gesture, nameless and no longer be distinguished from ourselves – not till then can it happen that in a most rare hour, the first word of a poem rises in their midst and goes forth from them.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Taken from the poetry workshop packet given by Allan C. Popa during his lecture on March 26, 2009 in Virac.
In order to write a single poem, one must see many cities, and people, and things; one must get to know animals and the flight of birds, and the gesture of flowers make when they open to the morning.
One must be able to return to roads in unknown regions; to unexpected encounters, to partings long foreseen; to days of childhood that are still unexplained, and to parents whom one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was joy for somebody else); to childhood illnesses that begin so strangely with such a number of profound and grave transformations, to days spent in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to oceans, to nights of travel that rushed along loftily and flew with all the stars – and still it is not enough to be able to think all of this.
There must be memories of many nights of love, each one unlike the other, or the screams of women in labor, and of women in childbed, light and blanched and sleeping, shutting themselves in.
But one must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in a room with open windows and fitful noises. And still it is not yet enough, to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many and one must have immense patience to wait till they come again. For the memories themselves are nothing. Not till they have returned to blood within us, to glance and gesture, nameless and no longer be distinguished from ourselves – not till then can it happen that in a most rare hour, the first word of a poem rises in their midst and goes forth from them.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Taken from the poetry workshop packet given by Allan C. Popa during his lecture on March 26, 2009 in Virac.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.