Tuesday, April 24, 2012

train your memory to fail


learn to say “I don’t know”learn to say “I can’t say” “I don’t remember”learn to say nothingtrain your memory to failrecognize that you have the right to make mistakesto stay muteinsist that the noise in your ears is due merelyto history’s winds or to the changes in pressurethat make mirages out of daily life
 link  - Urszula KoziolTo a Young ManA Polish Lessontranslated by Stanisław Barańczak and Claire Cavanaghgrowing orbits

learn to say “I don’t know”
learn to say “I can’t say” “I don’t remember”
learn to say nothing

train your memory to fail
recognize that you have the right to make mistakes
to stay mute

insist that the noise in your ears is due merely
to history’s winds or to the changes in pressure
that make mirages out of daily life

link  - Urszula Koziol
To a Young Man
A Polish Lesson
translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Claire Cavanagh
growing orbits
Image Source: inthewronggalaxy)

Monday, April 2, 2012

Sonnet II - Time Does Not Bring Relief: You All Have Lied



Funeral (Beerdigung). 1988. Oil on canvas 200 x 320 cm

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied   
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!   
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,   
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;   
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.   
There are a hundred places where I fear   
To go,—so with his memory they brim.   
And entering with relief some quiet place   
Where never fell his foot or shone his face   
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”   
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Time Does Not Bring Relief” from Collected Poems. Copyright 1931, © 1958 by Edna St. Vincent Millay 
Oil on canvas 200 x 320 cm