Monday, November 09, 2009

Of Time and Other Things

"The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?"

Emily Dickenson

It's been a couple of years now, and I can think of nothing to write about in his memory. The daunting pain of loss and suffering now dwells deep inside the dark caves of my forgetting. And the resentment I once held towards my self-created image of an apathetic God has died slowly over the past two years. It's time to make amends with myself and with him… To write about Life, and contradict the thoughts of Death that poisoned my mind for far too long. But before I do that, I need to stop for a while and ponder the passage of Time, to write about those fleeting seconds that leave us behind helpless as we age. Of the Past, the Present and the Future, of Love, Life and Death, this is what They had to say.

-- 0 --

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

-- 1 --

After a hundred years
Nobody knows the Place
Agony that enacted there
Motionless as Peace

-- 2 --

‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.

-- 3 --

O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.

-- 4 --

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

-- 5 --

Can't repeat the past? He cried incredulously "Why, of course you can!
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

-- 6 --

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

-- 7 --

So tell me now and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?

-- 8 --

Please love me now for now is all the time there may be

-- 9 --

After all... tomorrow is another day



I have nothing to write but quotes; poems, songs, films… I have nothing inside me but echoes from the past! The sea carries them to my ears, like cannon balls from a ghost ship, like thunder from a faraway storm, like You moaning in my dreams. The flickering starlight is suddenly disturbed by a rising half-moon, its weak orange light, a bit shaky behind the clouds, is barely enough to guide the foamy waves to my shore. What words does this sugary coated darkness bring me from spirits that perished within? What words will come out of that longing for the unknown? What Words will endure this painful desire and survive the long journey!

2 Comments:

Anonymous She said...

it is the first paragraph that catches me ... write your words on time, on being, what is it you have to say? I would love to read it in the way you read so passionately that what they had to say.

12:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder if Time has rested some of your thoughts?

1:47 AM  

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