Trapped in Hope

"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it”

Tennessee Williams

“There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.”
Stephen Wright

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
James Arthur Baldwin

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

“No man knows when his hour will come; As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them”
The Bible

“Worry compounds the futility of being trapped on a dead-end street. Thinking opens new avenues.”
Cullen Hightower

“Sometimes I feel that I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body - which actually works out pretty well”
Author Unknown

“With relish and delight, you continually bite at the bait; you are trapped, you fool - how will you ever escape?”
 Sri Guru Granth Sahib

“Love comes to those who still hope even though they've been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they've been betrayed, to those who still love even though they've been hurt before.”
Author Unknown

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
Albert Einstein

“In all things it is better to hope than to despair”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.”
French Proverb

“Hope never abandons you; you abandon it”
George Weinberg

“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope”
Author Unknown

“Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality.”
Author Unknown

“Dum spiro, spero (Latin), "While I breathe, I hope"
Latin Proverb

P.S. You might of course deduct that presently I have nothing to say, that I am totally unispired. Well you are absolutely right

"I am trapped in hope."
abufares

We Will Not Go Down (Song for Gaza)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y

Thanks Rime for passing this along.

In turn, this song would be mostly enjoyed and appreciated by the Arab Leaders (Eunuchs, Psychopaths, Schizophrenics and wimps), by the Leaders of the Free World including all of the European Union States, George W Shoe and American President Elect Barack Obama (since he condones Israel's actions in defending herself), by the 70% of the Israelis who support their government and who are equally partners in crime and last but not least by every bigot, humbug and hypocrite Arab who is blaming Hamas and/or the Palestinians for the Holocaust in Gaza.

We Will Not Go Down (Song for Gaza)
(Composed by Michael Heart)
Copyright 2009

A blinding flash of white light
Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight
People running for cover
Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive

They came with their tanks and their planes
With ravaging fiery flames
And nothing remains
Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

Women and children alike
Murdered and massacred night after night
While the so-called leaders of countries afar
Debated on who’s wrong or right

But their powerless words were in vain
And the bombs fell down like acid rain
But through the tears and the blood and the pain
You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

Look At Me

Unless I allow rage and hate to take hold of me, I have nothing to write about.
Abufares


Look at me
(A poem by Nahida the Exiled Palestinian)

I would love to write poetry about love,
Paint rainbows and butterflies,
Smell the scent of rose buds,
And dance;
Dance with the melody of birds singing

I would love to close my eyes and see children smiling
With no guns pointing at their heads
Tell them stories of little fairies in far away lands
Not of bullets shooting, or missile exploding

But
How can I?

There is a knife in my heart
I am hurting
Hurting

I bleed,
I cringe
I cry

HUMANITY, WHERE ARE YOU?

I am being slaughtered
Under your watchful eyes

I am cold… cold…. cold

I cringe
I cry

Humanity, where are you?
Why do you turn your face away?
Why do you keep looking the other way?
I am here

Languishing
In Gaza alleyways

Humanity, where are you?
Look at me
Look at me
I am here
In Gaza alleyways


I cringe
I cry

Humanity,
Enough turning the other way

beautiful

“La bellezza è la somma delle parti per cui niente necessita di essere modificato,aggiunto o rimosso."

"Beauty is a summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing is needed to be added, taken away or altered." Italian Impressionist Painter, Elio Carletti (1925-1980)

I first heard this phrase spoken in English by the character Cris Johnson in the American movie Next (played and produced by Nicholas Cage).

For years I struggled to beckon my thoughts to define beauty in such a perfectly exact, easily poised and brilliantly minimal sequence of words. I always fell long. Simplicity has proven a most formidable mountain to conquer and this is precisely why we can rant forever over the triviality of life and time but yield in saintly silence to the innocent laugh of a child or the mystifying summons in the eyes of a strange woman.

I sit on a solitary rock by my sea and gaze at the setting sun dissolving in the quenching quiver of the horizon. I comb my hair back with the tips of my fingers and roll my head toward the sky where flocks of hovering kites flutter their rainbow tails in the unseen salty draughts. Tethered to the hands of playful boys and girls, the kites sway enticingly with the wind. With their free hands the kids hold ice-cream cones and popcorn bags. Their blue jeans and colorful t-shirts soiled with dirt and chocolate, they laugh out loud in stubborn defiance to worried mothers, in blissful ignorance of things to come.


I am in love with beauty and I feel embittered that I can depict my feelings toward the generality or peculiarity of being with ease yet remain eluded by the most splendid manifestation of the universe. I flatter myself when I write about women as I definitely am not divine enough to add, take away or alter what they are. Women are such a perfect expression of substance, form and incongruity whether through creation or evolution. They are fragile, ferocious, intelligent, gorgeous, wicked, quixotic, sensible, giving and sparing at the same time. A man like that, even in the eye of a woman, is a deranged psychopath. I love that women surprise me with their predictability and hold me at bay while obliging my vanity.

I follow a creek upstream. The chirps of a lonely chukar partridge summoning his harem echo against the sides of the gorge. I step on a broken twig; the bird clears its throat and quiets down. Two surprised figures emerge from the thickets by the spring. The two young lovers might have been taking their eternal and private vows when I intruded. They shyly cross my path and I barely have time to detect the glistening reflection of the dusky sky running down their guiltless eyes. They hug again at a distance then fade in the dark and rife foliage.

The longer I write the more likely I am going to add to, take away from or alter what is simply beautiful. Hush!

Stop All the Clocks

On the evening of March 31, 1999, my mother quietly died. If hard-pressed, I can probably write about any subject, but not this one yet. My heart still aches from missing her eight years later. My life is split in two along one distinct line: before the death of my mother and after the death of my mother. I hope that I would be able to tell the whole world one day what a great person, what an exceptional woman, what a devoted mother, what a loving wife she had been.

I should have cried more but in the days following her death I convinced myself that the time would come when I can be alone and mourn her privately. It never came, and the pain is still bottled up inside.

I need to rest my head on her shoulder and tell her that I am tired when I am. I need to embrace her and break her the good news when they come my way. I need her today as I needed her on the day I was born.

In her memory, I would like to share with you this overwhelming poem “Funeral Blues, 1936” by Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 – 1973).

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message [She] is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

[She] was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever: 'I was wrong'

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Charms of the Passing Woman

The charms of the passing woman are generally in direct proportion to the swiftness of her passing. Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

With that in mind it becomes a whole lot easier to understand how a married man can be infatuated with an ephemeral woman. Only the passage of time can teach us such an adept craft. The purpose of a seemingly longing gaze is not necessarily the promise of consummation or hollow flirting. It’s something endlessly beyond. Such a man would not be seeking a clandestine affair, nor driven by foolish vanity or the illusion of resurrecting his slipping youth. The capacity to appreciate beauty in its abstract sense separates a gentleman from a womanizer. It’s basically the difference between an art aficionado and a tourist standing in front of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, each looking at the painting from the exact vantage point for dissimilar reasons with consequences world apart.

What allure does a passing woman have over the mind of a happily married man to make him stop in the middle of his track and silently emits a bewitched gasp. With or without a drop of the jaw, there are certain women out there who have this satiable effect on men. Who is she that can affect me so?

First, I’m not any smarter than Marcel Proust and accordingly she should walk in then out of my life rather swiftly. If she stays any longer than the essential period required to feel her under my skin and I’m still rapt, then I’d better admit that I’m a tourist after all. It could be that we are in for a long evening in a public place. I’d be looking in glances spread over time, barely long enough to rekindle the feeling of wonder and magic.

She must be seductively chaste. After all “there is no aphrodisiac like innocence.”* A woman who realizes that she’s exceptionally attractive but doesn’t work at all toward that end is a femme fatale. Many women are sexy at the nightclub level but a few are endowed with a perceptually sensual aura. Such a woman brings warmth to the heart of men while holding hands with a husband or companion and displaying a clear signal to all that she is already beyond reach. Yet, she emanates the splendor of being feminine beyond words. To be overly conscious and meticulous about her gift is the unfortunate gaffe committed by scores of beautiful women. It’s the difference between a natural jewel of unimaginable perfection shining in the deep of a dark blue ocean and a cut stone on a ring flaunted on an elegantly manicured hand.

A woman with an inexplicably mysterious smile often graces the dream of a man. A poet would dare elaborate on such a smile and I’m afraid that whatever I may say further would only distract from its exquisiteness. A smile which conveys an appreciation for life yet betrays a sense of a dormant sadness that is utterly private. The lips alone cannot convey a smile without a twinkling glow in the eyes. They could be the color of the sky, of virgin forests or akin to the dark of night. They are unimaginably clear, unfathomably deep, holding untold fables from a thousand and one nights.

And finally, I want this woman to acknowledge that I have taken her within my inner sight. I wouldn’t regard it as an invitation if she accepts my enthrallment through a gesture of the hand, a blink of the eye, or a caress on a loose hair strand. She could nonchalantly and without a spoken word say thank you for appreciating me and for being chivalrous enough to keep the flame well within the bounds of good manners yet to make me feel silently and pithily desired.

* "there is no aphrodisiac like innocence" quote by Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)

“Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening”

The title of this post is one of my favorite quotations. It is accredited to Alexander Woolcott (1887 – 1943) a critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine.

If we may argue that social evolution is as self evident as its biological counterpart then this sarcastic quotation really raises a serious question. For a social activity, trend or custom to survive despite its being challenged by three formidable and ruthless foes it must provide the individual with an extraordinary payback. It must give him or her “great and immense pleasure”. This is the only way through which this “thing” can flourish in the social jungle where the survival of the fittest is literally true.
But why is that so? Actually the question should be rephrased: Why did the law, religion and nature conspire against our flirting with hedonism?

I wish to tackle this intriguing question in reverse order, that is I shall begin with the fattening bit, if I may. In the animal kingdom, herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores eat like there is no tomorrow. All animals will continue to gobble until full to the brim. As a matter of fact we count on cows and sheep munching every single minute of their waking hours to make them as fat as possible, as fast as possible, so that we may, in turn, eat them. Lions, tigers and hyenas will keep devouring their prey until they fall into a dazed slumber. They would not hunt again until they are hungry and the process is repeated with every killing rampage. Apes and chimpanzees, our closest relatives, don’t go on a limited diet. They eat till they drop if food is aplenty. Research has shown that the life expectancy of animals will dramatically increase if they consume less food, if they were kept on the verge of starvation. A recent experiment on mice illustrated that their lifespan increased by 30% when they were fed half of the amount of food regular mice eat (the control group). But animals don’t do that, they just follow nature. In light of the above, I concede that the increase in the life expectancy of humans from the olden days is not a natural process. It has been achieved through advancements in medicine and motivated by our insatiable pursuit of immortality. It is not necessarily more beneficial for the human race that people are living longer and healthier. May be, and I’m just arguing here, that we were meant, biologically, to live shorter and happier by eating tastier, more fulfilling food. I reckon that the longer we humans live the more wars we humans are going to suffer. It’s simply a matter of economics, mathematics and geography. Being on a finite piece of land (Earth) and until space colonization becomes a reality (if that is morally and legally acceptable) our planet is getting shorter on resources and increasingly overcrowded. I fall back to scientific research. Laboratory mice living in overcrowded quarters have shown an amplified tendency toward violence, homicide (in this case mousicide) and even cannibalism. And my final coup de grâce to rest my case as far as health and longevity are concerned is that most wars in the history of mankind were started by elderly statesmen or leaders. As a matter of fact, many people who seek or hold public office are too old to be rightly alive.

Morality comes from the word mores of course, which plainly means a set of customs that a people live by. Sometime in our early recorded history, religion took hold and control of people’s minds and souls. Just to remain on the abstract level and in order not to ram my head against the unyielding wall of any one religion, I will go head to head with abstract religion in my onslaught, monotheist, polytheist, pantheist and pagan. There is a fundamental difference between religion and faith. The former is an indoctrinated invention while the latter is part of human instinct. Religion, however, juxtaposed itself with faith to become almost synonymous. Early cavemen believed (had faith without proof) that there is one or more superior power in nature. They didn’t have any religion but they had faith. They led a harsh life, with dangers lurking behind every obstacle. They were hunters or food gatherers too busy with insuring their daily existence. Out of simplicity and the mere struggle to survive, someone, who didn’t want to work, turned shaman. Slowly, faith was being coerced to morph into religion. The shaman (sage, priest, …etc.) played a progressively more central role and it was not to his advantage that people should believe in one or more deity without rituals and sacrifices. “Beware the wrath of the Goddess of the Wind if you don’t give her a leg of deer or a basket of fruits” he would ejaculate in a state of frenzy while dancing around a huge bonfire. “But, Uh, how would we offer our presents, Oh Wise One?” the poor cavemen would ask submissively. Needless to say, the shaman would tell them that he would take care of this extremely complex spiritual task. He would intervene. Should I tell you what he would do with the leg of deer and the basket of fruits? I will return to this particular question in my final bout against the law. We’ve come a long way since our ancestors became subservient to the high priests but this is the actual historic evolution of religion. As the clergy became more powerful they affirmed suitable traditions, abolished inconvenient mores and introduced new ones. Sex, in particular, became their favorite and primary target. Religion is more concerned with sex and managing women than with any other aspect of human behavior. I reason that in the beginning those priests looked real ugly and frightening with the masks and paints. They couldn’t get laid without introducing some divine order. My other theory is that they suffered from some sort of impotency and vented their frustration by ordaining whatever makes people happy taboo. Subsequent religions picked up the pieces and the forbidden became more ubiquitous than the allowed. Sex, unless regimented, controlled, authorized and licensed became immoral. There are many other taboos in religion; my previous argument should have covered them all.

Now we come to my final round, against the law. I have earlier indicated that I shall return to the question of what would the priest do with the leg of deer and the basket of fruits. Of course it would be ideal if he could have them all to himself. But in reality that would have not been possible. Even as early as the cave, there were many normal folks and a few bullies. Most world leaders, before and now, carry bully genes in their cells. The early shaman needed a partner. There was always a big intimidator who would beat the other cavemen and steal their food and their women. This son of a bitch was the perfect partner for that asshole. Law and Religion shook hands, hugged, kissed and eventually fornicated to produce an Order. In its ultimate manifestation, the present New World Order is a result of such an adulterous act, or shall we say marriage since there was a priest involved. What was immoral thus became too often illegal as well. The interests of the law and religion diverged and converged over the millennia. In Utopia they will be on opposite ends if not totally absent. The crucial lesson of history is that the downfall of civilizations has always taken place when politics and religion were in bed together. Illegal pleasures are very subjective and they vary from the absurd to the imperative. For some, it could be the simple pleasure of smoking a joint, for others it could be the simpler pleasure of speaking their minds without being arrested. Anything, good or bad, can be termed illegal and thus against the law. People are denied the right and the pleasure to roam the face of the earth (our planet) by word of the law. Most humans cannot travel to a given piece of land (referred to as country) to have fun or to work, thus live a more pleasurable life, unless he or she obtains a visa. If this document is not issued due to legal and/or outright religious reasons it would be illegal for these humans to set foot on that soil, regulated by the law to belong to one specific group and sanctified by religion as proper.

Am I too harsh, too nihilistic perhaps, or is it possible that I might be saying the truth in an awfully perverse way? Neither, I was just trying to explain this eloquent quotation: “Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening”.

Om Fares, the Wind Beneath My Wings

She wasn't even twenty when we first met, a pretty face with a big gorgeous smile, cat-walking through life as an English Literature student at Damascus University. I was a disillusioned soldier who did not belong, sailing through as the winds willed me. No chart to follow, no likely call for a next harbor.
She saw through me and perfectly understood why I spoke so little. It was much easier to express my feelings by bringing her (to her parents’ house) a bag of quails I’ve hunted than to look her straight in the face and say what’s really on my mind.
And she accepted that. She held my hand and took me as her life-long companion and soul mate.
Twenty years later, she can still stand me, which, by itself, is quiet an achievement and a true indication of her beautiful spirit. We’ve been through it all, the good, the bad and the in-between. Being married is like this, you know.
I can close my eyes and remember the moments of true happiness we’ve shared over the years. The birth of each of our three children. The pride, the joy. Trips we’ve made together, just the two of us in a small airplane or in the saddle of a motorcycle. I can also remember the hardships we’ve endured. The pain, the agony. My leaving home for a time, in search, yet again, for a bigger bite to eat, for more than my share in life. I strained my eyes looking too far when all I had to do was just close them and look inside. Whatever I wanted has always been here, within my reach. I would never let go again.
Om Fares reads my blog, when she has time, she tells me. Whatever I write, she already knows. I am still poor at finding the right words to tell her how I truly feel. I hope I can surprise her this time. I have chosen Bette Midler’s song because that’s what Om Fares is to me, the “Wind Beneath My Wings”.

Ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh.
It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that's your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
You're everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?
You're everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,
so high I almost touch the sky.
Thank you, thank you,
thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.

Activate the Player below to Enjoy this song (audio stream)


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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

For the first time since I’ve started blogging I have to take a break for a little over a week. Actually, taking a break usually means that we stop laboring and start enjoying ourselves. In my case, it’s exactly the opposite. I have to stop doing something I enjoy tremendously and go on laboring. I am leaving Tartous on a business trip. I haven’t been on the road (working) for a while and it’s high time I take this “regular” journey in my line of work. Although my laptop is always near or on my lap, I don’t think that I would be able to read, post or comment on any of my favorite or even my blog.
I shall return Inshallah on Saturday 11/11/06. Until then, what can I leave on my blog for all to read and may be come back to re-read? I could only think of one piece of writing, a masterpiece, my favorite all-time poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by Thomas Stearns Eliot. The American (later naturalized British) T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 26, 1888. He is considered to be the most influential realist poet of the twentieth century. He won the Noble Prize for literature in 1948. He died in London on January 4, 1965.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1910-1911 starts with a quotation from Dante’s Inferno (XXVII, 61-66) in ITALIAN. For your reference, I have added the translation at the end of the poem. I didn’t want to include it in the body of the poem itself in order to avoid any fiddling with the original work.
I will not be able to reply to your comments until early next week but I would love to read your thoughts and reactions concerning this poem.

From T. S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor
And this, and so much more?
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

********************************
Translation of Dante’s quotation

If I thought my answer were given
to anyone who would ever return to the world,
this flame would stand still without moving any further.
But since never from this abyss
has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true,
without fear of infamy I answer you.

When I Was Seventeen

Madsurg commented on my blog "Traveling at the Speed of Light" and pointed out this beautiful Frank Sinatra song: "It Was a Very Good Year , 1961". I'm sure many of you will be reading its lyrics for the first time.
Here it goes:

It Was A Very Good Year, by Frank Sinatra


When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five

But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
from fine old kegs
from the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

It was a mess of good years