somewhere i have never travelled

All of a sudden, I don't know why, I remembered this poem by e. e. cummings, a (once) favourite of mine in happier times:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

walking on the first snow

... always feels like a promising fresh start, like writing the first words in a unused, immaculate notebook. A vida passada a limpo - é isso.

Iizuna, Nagano, 22 November 2008

first snow (3)

Mt Kurohime and Mt Myoko seen from Reisenji Lake

Iizuna, Nagano

22 November 2008

first snow (2)

Iizuna, Nagano

22 November 2008

first snow (1)

Iizuna, Nagano

22 November 2008

vivo sonhando

Woke up in this strangely bubbly, sparkling mood, which makes me feel almost guilty. Listening to Tom Jobim (M2S version) while basking in the late autumn sun, barefoot, the bamboo leaves rustling outside my window, the sour-sweet smell of jasmine tea in the kitchen...

Vivo sonhando, sonhando
Mil horas sem fim
Tempo em que vou perguntando
Se gostas de mim
Tempo de falar em estrelas,
Mar, amor, luar
Falar do amor que se tem
Mas você não vem, não vem

Você não vindo não vindo
A vida tem fim
Gente que passa sorrindo
Zombando de mim
E eu a falar em estrelas,
Mar, amor, luar

Pobre de mim
Que só sei te amar

Why are my eyes always full of
this vision of you
Why do I dream silly dreams that
I fear won't come true
I long to show you the stars
Caught in the dark of the sea
I long to speak of my love
but you don't come to me
So I go on asking
if maybe one day you'll care...

slow learner

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Black Sea

... you are, no doubt. You still have miles and miles to go, great oceans of pain and time, before you learn to cope with the silence of others. Their indifference.

You are still the little girl in the picture, milk moustache, wide-eyed. Silly.

forest language

Davood Emdadian, Arbored

Les gens qui ne savent pas apprivoisier les arbres disent que les fôrets sont silencieuses. Mais dès que tu siffles, et que tu siffles bien, comme um oiseau, tu commences à entendre le bruit que font les arbres. Il y d'abord ces bâillements et ces respirations aigues. Puis tu perçois d'autres bruits. Il y a des coups lourds, comme s'il avait un coeur qui battait quelque part sous la terre. Puis tout un tas de craquements, des branches qui se reddressent avec des explosions, des feuilles qui se mettent à trembler, des troncs qui se dérident. Il y a surtout des bruits des sifflements, parce que les arbres te répondent. Ça c'est le langage des arbres. Si tu ne fais pas attention, tu peux croire que se sont des oiseaux qui sifflent. Il faut dire que ça y ressemble beaucoup. Mais ce ne sont pas les oiseaux qui sifflent, ce sont les arbres.

J.M.G. Le Clézio, Voyage au pays des arbres (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), pp. 10-11.