poem for Tuesday’s child: I do not love you…
Francesca Woodman, Rome, 1978
XVII (I do not love you…)
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
Translated by Stephen Tapscott
“Let us be kind”
How Syed Muzamil Hasan Zaidi spent his 22nd birthday:
1. Wrote personalized letters to policemen appreciating all they do for us
2. Bought ice cream for all the guards sitting in the heat
3. Got water bottles for CDA gardeners and traffic policemen…
The rest of this video shows how else he spent his big day.
Laughing baby, just try not to smile
8-month-old Micah laughing hysterically while at-home daddy rips up a job rejection letter.
Poem for Tuesday’s child: Why Some People Do Not Read Poetry
Why Some People Do Not Read Poetry
Because they already know that it means
stopping and without stopping they know that
beyond stopping it will mean listening
listening without hearing and maybe
then hearing without hearing and what would
they hear then what good would it be to them
like some small animal crossing the road
suddenly there but not seeming to move
at night and they are late and may be on
the wrong road over the mountain with all
the others asleep and not hitting it
that time as though forgetting it again
W.S. Merwin
poem for Tuesday’s child: I am Nobody’s Nigger
In honour of Dean Atta’s debut collection of poetry with the same title, which was only released a couple of days ago, here is this amazing poem.
For those of you outside the UK, in the first line of the poem he refers to Stephen Lawrence; Stephen, was an 18 year old Black man who was murdered on 22 April 1993, as he and a friend waited for a bus in south-east London. They were attacked by a group of five to six white youths who shouted: “What, what, nigger?” and then rushed towards them. His death was caused by the loss of blood from stab wounds.
The blunders of the first police investigation into the murder were so severe that Lawrence’s killers were not brought to justice for almost 18 years. In 2012 2 of those responsible for Stephen’s death were finally found guilty of his murder.
stuff I’m reading
I’m reading a ton for school, or what is called ‘college’ here in the UK, tons! I come across amazing quotes, lines of wisdom all the time, and I often want to share them. So, I’ve decided I’m going to post some of the most moving ones every so often. Here goes:
“A current illness in our society is ‘compulsive conformity’ (Moreno: 1965). People imitate others rather than being themselves…”
–The Handbook of Psychodrama by Karp, Holmes & Bradshaw Tauvon
“For the most part, our ‘obvious’ preferences and ‘natural’ ways of looking at things are mere hand-me-downs. They become routine and ‘right ‘ because we hold back from even imagining the opposite. Where people lack imagination it is always because they are afraid even to play with the possibility of something different from the matter-of-fact to which they cling for dear life. The ability to achieve and maintain an interested impartiality between imagined opposites, however absurd one may seem, is essential for any new creative solution of problems.”
–Gestalt Therapy by Perls, Hefferline & Goodman
