Tuesday, November 28, 2006
You who never arrivedin my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me—the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods—
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house—, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,—
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening . . .
You Who Never Arrived
Ranier Maria Rilke
trans. by Stephen Mitchell
[italics mine, as always.]
Mina at 9:16 AM
Monday, November 13, 2006
Mina at 1:01 PM
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
We do not need your money.We need you to light a candle of support
<http://www.lightamillioncandles.com>.
We're aiming to light at least One Million Candles by December 31, 2006.
Help Eradicate Internet Child Pornography.
Mina at 3:00 PM
Monday, November 06, 2006
so many things, so little time.the International Museum of Women has published Humay and my pieces, yay! will put up a link and a pretty banner for y'all to read and comment on.
we have moved. which means that all our stuff is sitting in 24-H whilst we sit in 39, Saigol Estate, and half of what belongs solely to me is currently packed with great skill in every available space inside my car. my books are in the backseat and insist on slipping and sliding with dangerous sounding but deceptive crunchy sounds whenever i turn or brake, much to my persistent frustration (which only makes me scowl at the moron who made me brake and yell "why are you killing my boooookksss jackaasssssss" impotently through the windscreen). there are copies on the front seat, wind chimes in the dash, posters and WAF stuff somewhere in between and a red lamp on the floor in front of the passenger seat. the boot is full of art, shoes, bags, racquets and a guitar. i should just drive to europe, i got all i need with me- even my toothbrush and contacts :P the last time the house was this emtpy was when we moved in and sana and i would roller-skate (jee that long ago, rollerblades nahien hoti thein) around the drawing and dining room as fast as we could. am trying not to indulge in the sentimental and think about how to unpack angelita as soon as i can, and how i'm going to have to finally zabardasti sort out 4 years worth of LUMS reading packages and notes.
H's baby is an adorable mass of cooing, giggly baby smooth as satin and powder. making sure i was smoke-free, germ-free and moving-mitti-free today i finally cuddled him for a bit in the morning. while i love anything that is a baby (except for gross thingses babies which may or may not include humans), this variety of baby, solid little kashmiri ones, are particularly eatable. s khala's ayeza is in the same mold- solid, cuddly baby that sits contentedly babbling on hip/bouncing in arms and does not flop neck about in limp-fish manner. ugh, bauhat zyada eatable :))
Mina at 10:25 AM
Thursday, November 02, 2006
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toil me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats
Mina at 12:06 PM
