Five Poems and a Beloved's Gaze

Krishna and Radha, painting by Jitendra Ramchandra Sharma

In Vain   — by Emily Dickinson

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!


Toward The Piræus   — by H. D. (Hilda Dolittle)

  Slay with your eyes, Greek,
  men over the face of the earth,
  slay with your eyes, the host,
  puny, passionless, weak.

  Break, as the ranks of steel
  broke of the Persian host:
  craven, we hated them then:
  now we would count them Gods
  beside these, spawn of the earth.

  Grant us your mantle, Greek;
  grant us but one
  to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
  men, craven and weak,
  grant us but one to strike
  one blow for you, passionate Greek.

        I

  You would have broken my wings,
  but the very fact that you knew
  I had wings, set some seal
  on my bitter heart, my heart
  broke and fluttered and sang.

  You would have snared me,
  and scattered the strands of my nest;
  but the very fact that you saw,
  sheltered me, claimed me,
  set me apart from the rest.

  Of men—of men made you a god,
  and me, claimed me, set me apart
  and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever—
  if I escape your evil heart.

        II

  I loved you:
  men have writ and women have said
  they loved,
  but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
  intense and may not move;
  till the fumes pass over;
  and may not falter nor break,
  till the priest has caught the words
  that mar or make
  a deme or a ravaged town;
  so I, though my knees tremble,
  my heart break,
  must note the rumbling,
  heed only the shuddering
  down in the fissure beneath the rock
  of the temple floor;
  must wait and watch
  and may not turn nor move,
  nor break from my trance to speak
  so slight, so sweet,
  so simple a word as love.

        III

  What had you done
  had you been true,
  I can not think,
  I may not know.
  What could we do
  were I not wise,
  what play invent,
  what joy devise?
  What could we do
  if you were great?
  (Yet were you lost,
  who were there, then,
  to circumvent
  the tricks of men?)
  What can we do,
  for curious lies
  have filled your heart,
  and in my eyes
  sorrow has writ
  that I am wise.

        IV

  If I had been a boy,
  I would have worshiped your grace,
  I would have flung my worship
  before your feet,
  I would have followed apart,
  glad, rent with an ecstasy
  to watch you turn
  your great head, set on the throat,
  thick, dark with its sinews,
  burned and wrought
  like the olive stalk,
  and the noble chin
  and the throat.

  I would have stood,
  and watched and watched
  and burned,
  and when in the night,
  from the many hosts, your slaves,
  and warriors and serving men
  you had turned
  to the purple couch and the flame
  of the woman, tall like cypress tree
  that flames sudden and swift and free
  as with crackle of golden resin
  and cones and the locks flung free
  like the cypress limbs,
  bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
  bound, caught and riven and bound
  and loosened again,
  as in rain of a kingly storm
  or wind full from a desert plain.

  So, when you had risen
  from all the lethargy of love and its heat,
  you would have summoned me, me alone,
  and found my hands,
  beyond all the hands in the world,
  cold, cold, cold,
  intolerably cold and sweet.

        V

  It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
  only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
  of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
  of love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.

  It was not chastity that made me wild but fear
  that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
  was over-matched by yours, and your hand
  skilled to yield death-blows, might break.

  With the slightest turn—no ill-will meant—
  my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought

  fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Four Quartets   — by T.S. Eliot

Burnt Norton

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

      The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always-
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.



*"Beloved," says Anoushka, "was my first experience writing lyrics from scratch and fitting it to a melody. It was flute-focused and I thought it would be nice to have it be about Krishna because he's always associated with the flute. The lyrics are from the viewpoint of Radha, who's his eternal lover. She's searching for him everywhere and then she understands that the reason she hasn't been able to find him is because she's not looking within herself."

SHYAM (श्याम): Hindi name derived from the Sanskrit element syama, meaning "black, blue." In mythology, this is a name belonging to Krishna.

Beloved - lyrics Anoushka Shankar/ vocals: Swarnima Gusain
Shyam re
(O Dark one*)
Shyam re
Shyam re
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
(Let me see you, dark one)
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Saawre, saawre
( "beautiful one, beautiful one")
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Saawre, saawre
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Chavvi torey nainon ki, taan teri bansi ki
( "the sight of your eyes, the sound of your flute")
Chavvi torey nainon ki, taan teri bansi ki
Satoan na tum aisay piya
(Do not torture me thus, my love)
Main hu teri bas teri
(I am yours, just yours)
Satoan na tum aisay piya
Main hu teri bas teri
Saason mein basa tera naam re
(It dwells in my breath, your name)
Shyam re, saawre
( "dark one, beautiful one")
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Itt ud khoju piya
(Here and there I look for you, my love)
Jaadu tuney aisa kiya
(Such a spell you have a cast on me)
Itt ud khoju piya
Jaadu tuney aisa kiya
Samjhi ab lila tori
(Now I understand your game)
Basey morey man mein piya
(You live in my heart, my love)
Samjhi ab lila tori
Basey morey man mein piya
Saason mein basa tera naam re
(It dwells in my breath, your name)
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re

some notes on my poetry translations...

奔馬

夢先於現實。
而純粹
似花，似血，似詩
，似枯腐前消逝的生。


Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity)  

Dreams, a priori, then reality.
And purity
Resembles a flower, resembles blood, resembles poetry,
Resembles life, a priori, disappearing before decay.


Notes on Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity)

The main inspiration behind my poem “Runaway Horses” was Mishima Yukio’s 奔馬 Runaway Horses, the second book in his tetralogy豊饒の海 The Sea of Fertility, Mishima’s final work before his ritual suicide (seppuku) on November 25, 1970, which he planned meticulously for at least a year with no one outside the group of hand-picked members of Tatenokai (楯の会, or Shield Society, a private militia in Japan dedicated to traditional Japanese values and veneration of the Emperor, founded and led by Mishima himself) having any indication of what he was attempting. Mishima discussed and wrote about seppuku extensively and in great details in Runaway Horses (but surely it was received, and intended to be, a work of fiction when published). The alternative translated title “Realistically Synaesthetic Purity” was given when I first translated this poem from the Chinese it was originally written in. Synaesthesia, meaning “a sensation experienced in a part of the body other than the part stimulated (in physiology)” or “the subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated. For example, a sound may evoke sensations of colour (in psychology),” is not something one usually experiences in daily life (our ordinary consciousness), but rather, is more likely to occur in an aesthetic experience (an extraordinary consciousness which distinguishes itself from ordinary consciousness in many of its metaphysical and epistemological characters).

Mishima’s Runaway Horses was the book which I enjoyed the least whilst reading his tetralogy – the most politically and socially oriented, and also the most scholastic and ‘academically complex’ style of writing. This book was almost too dry at times for me to recognise the literary giant and his artistic beauty which I fell so hopelessly in love with and has influenced me so much for so long. In this novel, Mishima left me no breathing space (something I crave and adore and need in literature). Nevertheless, the poem came to me a while after I finished all four books of The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, in a way that could not have been purer, simpler, like a flower blossoming at night with a faint, subtle and lingering scent. The feeling I had when naming my poem "Realistically Synaesthetic Purity" is that, I was overwhelmed from being over-stimulated in my eyes and my brain whilst reading Runaway Horses, but the sensation and purity I felt in my heart, from his heart, was realistic and not ‘transcendental’ or ‘idealistic’ (ideal, as opposed to ‘real’). Runaway Horses, albeit being a book on an area which I am not all that interested in, with its difficult words, with Mishima’s complicated, meticulous and formidable system of thoughts, the social and political notions and history discussed, was able to get through to me and make me feel its purity, simplicity and beauty in the end. I saw its heart. Its essence.

A priori: 先驗性, ‘determining something priori to their being given,’ ‘existing in the mind prior to and independent of experience,’ (antonym: a posteriori). I dedicate this poem, and in particular this line, to Mishima Yukio and his book Runaway Horses:
“And purity… Resembles life, a priori, disappearing before decay.”


*                    *                    *                    *


曉寺

(薰息，我執，唯識)

緣起於鏡花水月的無常
存活涅槃之花瓣間的阿賴耶識，似
剔透的純藍火焰蘊蓄
鏤花之詩

桃花心木質的鏤空雕花
在蒼白哀傷的殘月撫觸下
散發似水晶斷面般清明露華
濕漉而冷冽的香氛


Temple in Vijñaptimātra

(…incense, Ātma-grāha, Vijñānavāda)

Dependant arising, from the impermanence
Of mirrored flowers, of moon water
Exists ālayavijñāna between petals of nirvana, as if
Transparency of pure blue flames, and
Within which a filigree of poetry

Rosewood reliefs under caresses
Of pale sorrowful moonlight
Scent of dewdrops at dawn permeates, like
A crystal facet; the soaking, penetratingly
Icy perfume

Notes on Temple in Vijñaptimātra

Inspired by Mishima Yukio’s 曉寺 Temple of Dawn, my favourite book in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and perhaps my favourite of all his books and writings I have read, my poem “Temple in Vijñaptimātra” was also written originally in Chinese and translated into English quite some time later. Unlike “Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity),” which I consider a rather abstract poem of mine, “Temple in Vijñaptimātra” appeared/arrived with imageries, sounds, smells, and words which alone might not mean much but present themselves as gemstones, paint colours and musical notes for me to create jewellery, paintings and songs. Independent and individual images to be made into a ‘moving and flowing’ film. That is how I usually write poetry. Having been influenced by Buddhist concepts since primary school when I first came across a writer whose prose is deeply inspired by Chan Buddhism, and given my love of words and ideograms (specifically Chinese), I fell in love with Buddhist terminologies in Chinese (and later in their original Sanskrit) for their sounds, their appearances, and the ways words are arranged. For me, they are in and of themselves, poetry, and always provide many inspirations.

Vijñaptimātra (唯識論): ‘Mere representation;’ the Yogācāra theory that the contents of everyday, unenlightened experience are merely a false superimposition upon actuality of dualistic concepts generated by the mind that prevent direct experience of reality as it truly is (yathā-bhūta). Some later forms of Yogācāra lend themselves to an idealistic interpretation of this theory but such a view is absent from the works of the early Yogācārins such as Asaṇga and Vasubandhu.
Ātma-grāha (我執): attachment to self
Vijñānavāda (विज्ञानवाद): 唯識宗, the Vijñaptimātra school of thought
Aālayavijñāna (阿賴耶識): The ālaya-vijñāna forms the "base-consciousness" (mūla-vijñāna) or "causal consciousness". According to the traditional interpretation, the other seven consciousnesses are "evolving" or "transforming" consciousnesses originating in this base-consciousness.
The store-house consciousness accumulates all potential energy for the mental (nama) and physical (rupa) manifestation of one's existence (namarupa). It is the storehouse-consciousness which induces transmigration or rebirth, causing the origination of a new existence.


*                    *                    *                    *


Decayed

birds fluttering feathers beasts secretly cringing
as if musk spreading in the mists astray, fading
then never a sound in Death/ nor breath/ not even heart
Death seals and stagnates the pale wax of light
in her mouth
as if a tooth-filing ceremony as if anaemia as if bleeding


One little footnote on Decayed…

*Tooth-filing Ceremony: The Balinese Ceremonies of Tooth-filing

The second part of human ceremonies for the Balinese Hindu life is tooth-filing. The ceremony is held when a child reaches adulthood, the purpose of which is to minimise sins – Anger, Envy, Greed, Arrogance, Drunkenness and so on. This ceremony must be performed prior to a child’s marriage or after the girl’s first menstrual period starts. Only 6 teeth should be filed for this ceremony – 2 eye teeth and 4 incisors of the top teeth. Tooth-filing is a very important ceremony for Balinese life, as it is believed that should the ceremony not be performed on a person, that person’s soul will be restless and never in peace when s/he dies. Those in tooth-filing ceremonies should dress in mostly golden yellow and white colours, symbolism of holiness. In Bali, Balinese Hindus believe in thousands of gods, and every single thing in the house has a spirit. They believe that there is a god watching over the place, and offerings are also essential to bad spirits. This is to give gratitude to the gods, and to the bad spirits for not disturbing their peace. Beautiful and exquisitely colourful ephemeral offerings seen everywhere on the island of Bali are made every single day as small offerings to thousands of deities and evil spirits, one of Bali’s sights that have always had my heart.



*Beautiful ephemeral offerings! One of the topics I enjoyed the most when I studied Southeast Asian art history/archaeology/material cultures in university. (More photographs from my travel to Ubud, Bali...)

Second Poem for Xiao-Tsao: 小草詩箋其二

板胡歌唱著花梆子　
遠處朦朧樂音　裊裊如烟飄盪 
蒂安．阿柏絲*眼中黑衣白領的雙胞胎　
神遊福爾摩沙兩美 
指尖與臂彎圈出了一抹心　
細膩綾羅下對稱著蹻工儿 
「相片是關於一個秘密的秘密。
它告訴你愈多，你知道得愈少。」 

 ("A photograph is a secret about a secret. 
 The more it tells you the less you know." ~*Diane Arbus) 

 ─ 黃亭禎

I feel very proud and privileged to announce that the second poem I wrote for Mr. Chin's wonderful Xiao-Tsao (Young Grass) Academy of Art 小草藝術學院 postcard publication has been printed and produced. The image is, again, a precious old photograph from the bygone era, tinted with beautifully and subtly faded colours, which represents something perhaps more than merely a distant dream. This image of two Formosan beauties, much like the first one I wrote a poem for (see here), gave me much inspiration and I felt its narrative potential instantaneously when I laid my eyes on it.

Below I have quoted Mr. Chin's blog entry on this publication - it is, as always, beautifully written in Chinese (but I might translate it into English for my beloved readers at some point!). I would like to thank him again for giving me the opportunities to poetically interpret these captivating old photographs (something very dear to my own heart) and imagine the many stories which my mind and heart conjure up with such visual fascination. I truly look forward to writing many more poems to accompany Mr. Chin's Xiao-Tsao, a labour of love  from a true artist whom I respect and admire.

*     *     *

(See original post here...)

"小草明信片的編號超過四百號後，開始試著以小草的觀點，挑選並覆刻印製世界的經典圖像。但持續整理複製臺灣的老視覺，始終是小草永遠都不會忘記的初衷。這張迷人又數量稀少的《福爾摩沙雙美人》手彩明信片，老早便想覆刻為小草明信片，以讓更多人看到、擁有及書寄，但一直卡在沒有相對應的文案。因此這回得以一償宿願，必須萬分感謝黃亭禎小姐，繼小草418《上海時裝雙美人》手彩明信後，再次為小草明信片書寫文案。這則文案十分特別的是黃小姐還為「相片是關於一個秘密的秘密。它告訴你愈多，你知道得愈少。」一句附上了英文原典，這在小草過往的文案中是前所未有，若非因為由學貫中西的黃小姐操刀文案，小草明信片大概不會有如此的文案呈現吧！期盼這般的試驗，不僅可以活化小草明信片的單一生命力，更重要的是讓百年前的《福爾摩沙雙美人》手彩明信片，因為與這則文案相遇交會，從而激盪出以島嶼為中心，卻跨越了時代及區域的全新詩意漣漪‧‧‧ 最後依然要再次由衷感謝黃亭禎小姐熱心的無償精彩文案書寫！"

This really made my day like nothing else... Another wonderfully handmade gift from Mr. Chin (look at his beautiful calligraphy!) and *loads* of Xiao-Tsao (Young Grass) Academy postcards featuring precious images, including the two with my poetry. I am continuing to write poems for Xiao-Tsao and will do it forever!! Mr. Chin's unique and rare collection of images re-ignited my passion for poetry writing in Chinese, something I had a lengthy respiro of way over ten years, but still now love it so. The wood box, with his calligraphy "亭禎詩文案" (a Pandora's Box for Ting-Jen's poetry) was what he created for me to collect all my future poem-postcards, a poetry-image collaboration between us which I hope will continue for a very, very long time. Indeed it is a Pandora's Box -- once I (re)started writing poetry in Chinese, I cannot stop (nor do I want to!!).
再次由衷感謝秦政德大哥如此費心的美好禮物，您真是太客氣了！能為小草寫詩是我的福氣。

Look, look, look...! How gorgeous it is inside too! There is even calligraphy on the side (where the box closes) in very special seal script 隸書體... ♥♥♥ I am so deliriously happy about this gift (and the previous one of course!) I'm going to cry...

*          *          *

And here is Mr. Chin's heartfelt and wonderfully written response (with great humour!): *via

儘管小草明信片一開始就非常清楚定位在「覆刻」老圖像，不過卻始終努力嘗試著讓「覆刻」不只是單純「覆刻」。換句話說，總希望在「覆刻」老圖像之餘，可以多一些帶點積極意義的新創造。正因為這樣小小的想法與期許，才會有每款小草明信片背後都不一樣的搭配文案。哪怕只有一行短短的書寫文案，小草明信片大概就不單只是照著印老圖像，反而擁有了與昔日對話的現在時代性吧！但剛搞小草明信片時，包括資源、人脈等什麼都沒有，在完全找不到人書寫小草明信片的情況下，只好硬著頭皮自己絞盡腦汁帶筆上陣了！所以小草明信片早期的文案品質如何？便可想而知了！儘管如此，仍然十分阿Q地想：「關於文案，不管寫多爛，有總比沒有好」。於是學畫畫的我，縱然很悲情地不停榨乾自己、以一絲絲搔首猛冒的白髮，換取小草明信片的一字字難產的文案，小草明信片的文案啊！依舊只是在「有總比沒有好」的水準邊緣浮浮沉沉‧‧‧ 

所以為了小草明信片的整體品質，當然想找精於文字的人書寫，但時時面臨生存大關的小草明信片，依然還是沒有多餘資源可以提供相對應的酬勞。即使終於厚著臉皮、鼓起勇氣尋求周遭人際友情的書寫贊助，可以在大家都辛辛苦苦忙於生計的情況之下，多半都遭到婉拒或不了了之‧‧‧ 

因此當我頗為冒昧地抱著姑且一試的誠懇態度，以臉書訊息詢問黃亭禎小姐是否願為小草明信片書寫文案，沒料到居然獲得極為明快的善意回應並隨即收到文字時，心底盡是滿滿激動的感恩之意。畢竟在小草目前尚無法支付相應稿酬的情形下，以黃小姐優異特出的家世、學歷及才情‧‧‧願意不多計較地替小草寫著無償文案，小草藝術學院除了感激，還是不停地由衷感激！ 

這回小草明信片新品419《福爾摩沙雙美人》手彩明信片，背後文案就是黃亭禎小姐第二次為小草量身書寫的詩，為了表達謝意，另一方面，哈哈！也希望精於文字的黃小姐，能繼續為小草書寫高優質的詩文案，所以特地選了個專放套裝小草明信片的梧桐木盒，恭敬研墨握筆、認認真真題上《亭禎詩文案》。 

由於黃小姐長期隨外籍夫婿旅居全球，不久前才回到臺灣，我方能把新品明信片與《亭禎詩文案》木盒寄出，昨天在臉書上便看到黃小姐貼出《亭禎詩文案》的照片與大半英文的介紹。顯然，黃小姐還蠻接受小草表達謝意的《亭禎詩文案》套裝木盒，如果黃小姐不棄嫌的話，真希望小草藝術學院有榮幸與福氣能繼續與黃小姐合作，為《亭禎詩文案》再放進一張張、一首首，以新時代語言喚醒並吟詠老靈魂的生命明信片‧‧‧

The Third Poem: The Room In Between

Water lilies, float on diagonals, tumbling
down the rustic fragile ladder
(those spaces in-between, those hollows of dreams)
into, a pond of flickering candlelights.
They lure you to sing (to sing), they lure you to jump (to jump).
Tears of white wax whirling, and slowly, slowly gliding
(until they embrace each other, to the point of 
agony, and drop) 
into, what seems to be 
a cloud -- warm, soft, and then void
of softness and warmth.
(Is that a cloud I am seeing?)

Do words give two different scents such
untranslatable longings, such 
inexplicable wounds?

There is nothing spoken, no sounds, and yet voices are
everywhere, filling and choking the disquiet air. 
There is no silence in the night.

Let me have your fingers from which the music flows,
those book pages dancing like scattering petals,
those blank canvases where moonlight weeps.
Allow me your thoughts where all poems are born.
Allow me your heart where the irises grow.

Is that the light in Paris, or the lamp softly leaning
against your cognac-hued wall?

Dust in the morning, 
drowning noises on the streets,
settling a painting undone, unfinished, uncomposed, uncompromised.

Until I see it no longer.

The Second Poem: Darshan

Nothing is rewarded, nothing is taken away.
Nothing given, and nothing received.
Nothing is gained, nothing is required.
Nothing broken, and nothing healed.
Nothing is dissolved, nothing is resolved.
Nothing heard, and nothing sung.
Nothing wasted, because nothing appears.
Nothing born, and nothing disappears.
Nothing blossoms, nothing evanesces.
Nothing endured, and nothing relieved.
Nothing ever lost, nothing ever is.
Nothing separated, non-union in the non-exist.
Unchanging. Distancing. Be.

It mirrors you, not your intrinsic being.
A reflected truth that is
the greatest lie.
A clear eye that sees, this apparent world, the water moon, the river snow,
sees nothing
but the inner imaginings of your mind,
the inner workings of your head,
the inner strivings.
Not the essence. Merely a vision.
The day eyes are removed, heart opens.

Internalisation. Realisation. Materialisation. Etherealisation.
No reflection. No shadows. No mirror. No flames.
No eloquence. No poetry. No words. No speech. No sounds.
No hurt. Nothing locked. No window. Nothing to see. No release. None retrieved.
No cacophony. No harmony.
No flourishing. No withering.
No waste land. No pure land.
No courage. No heart and no mind. Bones are
no more than bones.
No permanence. No disappearance.
No transience. No constancy.

Noiselessness. Statelessness. Formlessness. Truthlessness.
Fleeting.

The drunken morning eats away its languid afternoon into an apathetic dusk,
witnessing the unconcern of a dying night.
Not a thunderstorm but a snowflake
Not a symphony but a whispered sigh

Lie down on the ground, and let the fallen leaves cover you.
Let your arms drop. Let the rain fall.
Hush your eyes.

This quiet.
This unshining.


… The eye is on fire; forms are on fire; eye-consciousness is on fire; impressions received by the eye are on fire.

– Prince Gautama Siddharta, 563-483 B.C.

*For reference... Darśana was an inspiration behind this piece, something I have loved since the day I was introduced to the concept, but not immediately related to the content (of how this poem turned out to be). 

‎"Darshan is ultimately difficult to define since it is an event in consciousness ... which focuses and calls out the consciousness of the devotee ... a heightening of consciousness or spirituality is the intended effect."

On self, integrity, and acharya

Visualise a wooden stick (self) that is used to stir up the fire and eventually is consumed entirely and disappears in the Great Fire (Self)...

To study Buddhism is to study the self 
to study the self is to forget the self
to forget the self is to become enlightened by all things
to be enlightened by all things is to destroy the barrier between one's self and others.

-- Dogen Zenji

*From the comment on Peony's article 'under a flame tree (with you & confucius)' - thank you!


It is wonderfully attractive (and admirable) to be a fully-enlightened being, one who has "realised" and unafraid of leaving this world of sam sara behind. But what I find truly precious and rare, is to have realised and transcended, whilst still be able to surrender to this world and play whatever role on earth that you are ordained to play -- one's responsibility, in the truest form of "trust."

And to be an acharya: one who practises what one preaches -- there is truth in life, and it is the light and clarity of life, it is integrity, which cannot be further away from an intoxicated, pompous view of one's self. To have enough courage -- a Bodhisattva, effectively. One who has already been lifted but chooses to remain, with compassion, wisdom, and kindness (this reminds me of Su Dongpo in a way). But then, with no struggling, no striving, no conflicts, like all that melts and disappears in the fire. In the end even the fire itself will remain no longer. With full knowledge of this, and still walk the path. With full knowledge that you will be betrayed, and still love (thinking of Jesus, and Odette from Swan Lake).

There is, in the end, nothing to fill the empty cup with anymore, for the cup has already been smashed.


To look at the world with a smile.

The First Poem: For David

(For my husband, whose lullaby is my breathing every night.)

All the secrets I do not share,
and all the secrets I tell no one;
all the secrets absent in my poems,
and all the secrets I do not sing, even in the silent song
of solitude permeating my veins
like the warmth and gentle scent of your amber,
these secrets are buried deep inside, within
the dreams of your belly.
They melt, and are reborn.
They grow wings, and they fly.

In the blueness of your eyes
is the light of a deep ocean that has lived
a thousand years, a thousand years of
meditative loneliness. In your hair, the golden amber grows
into a transparent flower, fragrance of the night.
The amber flower that connects your mind
with your heart.

One day you discovered a pale feather
of an anonymous bird, colour of a pale rose.
A rare feather,
exquisite and fragile, shining under
an old tree of glittering green leaves.
It was nighttime, but the sun was out.
Your one tender kiss awoke the feather, and turned it
into the bird she once was, in a past life she had already forgotten.
The rare and exquisite and fragile bird.
And she has lived with your heart, in your heart, ever since.

Your surrender to nothingness is expansive, and
the warmest embrace there ever is, ever will be.
Your refined detachment of the closest, dearest attachment of tenderness
It gives meaning to what seems to be void of meanings at all,
resembling a delicately and beautifully
cracked porcelain vase,
its slender neck holding all the secrets which are not remembered.
The unbreaking of a broken egg, in the most perfect shade
of pearlescent ivory, with
not even the faintest lines on a rainbow-hued seashell.
I realise in this moment we are regal.
We are angels.
Your elegance is the reddest of all the red peonies
blooming between our bodies and souls.
Us.

You say I can neither understand nor imagine. I close
my eyes and think of
the most beautiful desert moon, or the saddest
love poem, or our daughter
in your arms, in the farthest and nearest yesterday
of our tomorrow.

You spoke to my philosophy professor as if
he was one of your oldest friends.
You talked about Heidegger, and game theory,
and all the dilemmas of life, in a beautiful manner which transcended them all,
as if they were lines from an old poem you had written long ago.
You say the whole life is in The Little Prince, and that you
cannot admire someone who is not an acharya,
however brilliant his thoughts,
however great his legacy.
I look at this perfect man before me, with his
bluest blue eyes and think to myself, "I married
the one rare acharya I know."

I am your heart, as you are my poetry,
mirror of my aloneness
the soundlessness of my melodies,
the attachment of my detachment,
the meaningfulness of my meaninglessness,
the nothingness of my very own self,

my undefined/undefinable otherness.


You taught me I am myself and I am enough,
in need of no more, like Cocteau's Trinity
that binds my heart in the truest way it longs to be bound.

And so I write, different from how I have ever written poetry,
in the state of being and the state of breathing,
without striving and crafting,
without effort,

as if I was writing
for the very first and the very last time.

Here, Now. *Photography by Juan Jose Olavarrieta Gomez 

思緒 stream of consciousness...

The choleric ochreous Svetlana, the sanguine ruby Natalia, the electrical violet Yekaterina, and the longing in the lines of her voice, and the arresting agitation in the disquiet curves of the violin's singing... leading to a resolution of all that is unresolved in the angelic white of (again) Svetlana - a soft sign of 'hush.'

If everything has already been done, why do we even bother to play our roles in this world, following the plot that has already been written, and already been known? Such is the greatest mystery, and the question asked millions of times (and perhaps answered) in the Gita.
Arjuna: "I do not wish to lead this fight. I do not want to kill all these people."
Lord Krishna: "What do you mean you do not wish to kill all these people? They are already dead. I have already killed them all."

So why do we go through this all over again?
(Too profound for a jet-lagged night in London...)


The Bolshoi Ballet in the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's Russian Seasons, 15.11.2008. 
Cast ---
Couple in Orange (then in White): Svetlana Zakharova and Andrei Merkuriev 
Couple in Red: Natalia Osipova and Denis Savin 
Couple in Green: Yekaterina Shipulina and Pavel Dmitrichenko 
Couple in Violet: Yekaterina Krysanova and Igor Tsvirko 
Couple in Blue: Anna Rebetskaya and Vladislav Lantratov 
Couple in Claret Red: Anna Nikulina and Vyacheslav Lopatin

Trees, light, green, sun, leaves, life -- a dreamland absent of questions and answers; a hypnotised land of silent truth. One does not even have to realise that one has already realised.

*          *          *

dew evaporates 
and all our world 
is dew ... so dear, 
so fresh, so fleeting 

 (kobayashi issa)

... if only the world could be more fleeting than what we are experiencing...

*          *          *

Enter the kingdom of words as if you were deaf.
Poems are there that want to be written.
They are dormant, but don't be let down,
their virginal surfaces are fresh and serene.
They are alone and mute, in dictionary condition.
Live with your poems before you write them.
If they're vague, be patient. If they offend, be calm.
Wait until each one comes into its own and demolishes
with its command of words
and its command of silence.
Don't force poems to let go of limbo.
Don't pick up lost poems from the ground.
Don't fawn over poems. Accept them
as you would their final and definitive form,
distilled in space.
[...]
Take note:
words hide in the night
in caves of music and image.
Still humid and pregnant with sleep
they turn in a winding river and by neglect are transformed.

-- "Looking for Poetry" by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, trans. into English by Mark Strand.

Three Poems: Lovers, Beauty, Liberation, Transient Constancy & Poetry

Desire - From The Love Poems Of Rumi

A lover knows only humility,
he has no choice.
He steals into your alley at night,
he has no choice.
He longs to kiss every lock of your hair,
don't fret, he has no choice.
In his frenzied love for you,
he longs to break the chains of his imprisonment,
he has no choice.

A lover asked his beloved:
Do you love yourself more than you love me?
Beloved replied: I've died to myself and I live for you.
I've disappeared from myself and my attributes,
I am present only for you.
I've forgotten all my learnings,
but from knowing you I have become a scholar.
I have lost all my strength,
but from your power I am able.

I love myself ... I love you.
I love you ... I love myself.

I am your lover, come to my side,
I will open the gate to your love.
Come settle with me, let us be neighbours to the stars.
You have been hiding so long,
endlessly drifting in the sea of my love.
Even so, you have always been connected to me.
Concealed, revealed, in the unknown, in the un-manifest.
I am life itself.

You have been a prisoner of a little pond,
I am the ocean and its turbulent flood.
Come merge with me,
leave this world of ignorance.
Be with me, I will open the gate to your love.

I desire you more than food or drink.
My body, my senses, my mind, hunger for your taste.
I can sense your presence in my heart
although you belong to all the world
I wait with silent passion for one gesture,
one glance from you.


*More on Verschwiegene Liebe (Silent Love), see here...

Lyrics from a poem by Josef Karl Benedikt von Eichendorff (1788-1857).

Over treetops and cornfields, and into the splendour – Who may guess at them, who could overtake them? Thoughts float away. Night keeps her secrets. Thoughts are free. If only she could guess, who has been thinking of her, by the rustling of the grove, when no one was awake. Save the clouds flying past – My love keeps its secret, and is beautiful as the night.

Über Wipfel und Saaten
In den Glanz hinein -
Wer mag sie erraten,
Wer holte sie ein?
Gedanken sich wiegen,
Die Nacht ist verschwiegen,
Gedanken sind frei.

Errät es nur eine,
Wer an sie gedacht
Beim Rauschen der Haine,
Wenn niemand mehr wacht
Als die Wolken, die fliegen -
Mein Lieb ist verschwiegen
Und schön wie die Nacht.

(Also listen to my beloved lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's beautiful rendition of Verschwiegene Liebe here.)

*     *     *

One Woman to All Women
by D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

I don't care whether I am beautiful to you
You other women.
Nothing of me that you see is my own;
A man balances, bone unto bone
Balances, everything thrown
In the scale, you other women.

You may look and say to yourselves, I do
Not show like the rest.
My face may not please you, nor my stature; yet if you knew
How happy I am, how my heart in the wind rings true
Like a bell that is chiming, each stroke as a stroke falls due,
You other women:

You would draw your mirror towards you, you would wish
To be different.
There's the beauty you cannot see, myself and him
Balanced in glorious equilibrium,
The swinging beauty of equilibrium,
You other women.

There's this other beauty, the way of the stars
You straggling women.
If you knew how I swerve in peace, in the equi-poise
With the man, if you knew how my flesh enjoys
The swinging bliss no shattering ever destroys
You other women:

You would envy me, you would think me wonderful
Beyond compare;
You would weep to be lapsing on such harmony
As carries me, you would wonder aloud that he
Who is so strange should correspond with me everywhere.

You see he is different, he is dangerous,
Without pity or love.
And yet how his separate being liberates me
And gives me peace! You cannot see
How the stars are moving in surety
Exquisite, high above.

We move without knowing, we sleep, and we travel on,
You other women.
And this is beauty to me, to be lifted and gone
In a motion human inhuman, two and one
Encompassed, and many reduced to none,
You other women.



*     *     *

The Art Of Poetry
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.


Arte Poética
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

Mirar el río hecho de tiempo y agua
y recordar que el tiempo es otro río,
saber que nos perdemos como el río
y que los rostros pasan como el agua.

Sentir que la vigilia es otro sueño
que sueña no soñar y que la muerte
que teme nuestra carne es esa muerte
de cada noche, que se llama sueño.

Ver en el día o en el año un símbolo
de los días del hombre y de sus años,
convertir el ultraje de los años
en una música, en un rumor y un símbolo,

Ver en la muerte el sueño, en el ocaso
un triste oro, tal es la poesía
que es inmortal y pobre. La poesía
vuelve como la aurora y el ocaso.

A veces en las tarde una cara
nos mira desde el fondo de un espejo;
el arte debe ser como ese espejo
que nos revela nuestra propia cara.

Cuentan que Ulises, arto de prodigios,
lloró de amor al divisar su Itaca
verde y humilde. El arte es esa Itaca
de verde eternidad, no de prodigios.

También es como el río interminable
que pasa y queda y es cristal de un mismo
Heráclito inconstante, que es el mismo
y es otro, como el río interminable.

Romeo, his Juliet, and their Sonnet; 周慕雲, 蘇麗貞, Mr Zhou, Mrs Su, and melodies of their love restraint (from 花樣年華 "In the Mood for Love")

The significance which is in

unity

is an eternal wonder.

~Rabindranath Tagore

+++

On "first love," and "love at first sight"...

It is when David Copperfield first laid his eyes on the ever lovely Dora Spenlow (to quote Peony, "Dora is a favourite child of nature. She is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy")... Love at first sight does exist. And this initial Swan Lake pas de deux (this particular rendition by Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle, still the most perfect classical ballet partnership today, for me), when Prince Siegfried first cast his gaze upon Princess Odette, illustrates 'love at first sight' to me perfectly. That is how I fell in love with Svetlana... Swan Lake remains to be one of my favourite classical ballets (and perhaps my absolute number one, that is if someone puts a gun to my head and asks...) -- in addition to the unparalleled beauty in the interaction and union of its music and movement, it is the complex analyses and portrayals of human psychology, so intrinsic to the understanding, appreciation and interpretation of this ballet, that truly and forever captures and mesmerises me. Why Odette is so hesitant, and with such internal/eternal sorrow, is that she already possesses the full knowledge that her love, Siegfried, would later betray her and break his promise, falling for the bewitching black swan Odille. And yet her longing for him cannot be more evident and heartrending in the later pas de deux (the dialogue/singing between the violin and the cello kills me, every time, as well as how the dancers finish their last movement with that final musical phrase, see also here), following their first encounter.



*   *   *

And first love, in choreographer Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo first laid eyes on Juliet in that very masquerade ball, when she was to dance with her future husband... (starting around 2:00) "Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night." The balcony scene which follows is a complete and utter display of Romeo's romantic passion for Juliet, as well as her surrender to his love (leading to the total abandonment shown in their later pas de deux). I always get very emotional when I see this ballet performed live... with Prokofiev's genius music. Such is the wonder and essence of art.
"A arte existe porque a vida não basta." (Ferreira Gullar) Art exists because life is not enough. It is as Friedrich Nietzsche said in The Birth of Tragedy, “it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.”



The beautiful Prima Ballerina of Royal Ballet, Tamara Rojo, who is known for her dramatic interpretation of roles as well as fierce technical brilliance, once said in an interview, "When I'm on stage (as Juliet), I feel I'm in love with Carlos. I am in love with Carlos when we dance." Indeed, an artist needs to pour his/her heart and soul completely into the work. Be completely bare, completely immersed/devoted, and hence completely illuminating -- a total embrace. This reminds me of Nijinsky and his diaries, one of my favourite books...

The balcony scene performed by Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta:



And...the "legendary" Alessandra Ferri and Wayne Eagling in the balcony scene pas de deux from Kenneth Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet, one of the greatest pas de deux moments of classical ballet.




Romeo: [To a Servingman]
What lady is that, which doth
enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?

Servant:
I know not, sir.

Romeo:
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

*   *   *

Romeo: [To Juliet]
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet:
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo:
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet:
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Romeo:
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

Juliet:
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo:
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

{*One of the first sonnets I ever studied as a world literature student, is this...}

An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown
depicting Romeo and Juliet's famous balcony scene.

*   *   *

Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care. But for another gives its ease, and builds a heaven in hell's despair.

~William Blake

*   *   *

To quote poet-essayist Ian Lennart Surraville's words (although these were regarding a film, I find them well suited to the notion of first love/love at first sight between Odette and Siegfried, Romeo and Juliet, and David and Nora):

"The fragile landscape of the two in love was most delicately sketched with its storytelling. Those of you who have been in love without self-dramatisation and egocentric delusions a usual Hollywood love story places would understand the exact nature of the harrowing sense of leaving and being left behind, emptiness and solitude, and demoralisation that comes with constantly remembering that inexplicably heart-bursting first moments of love. That irretrievability of what was once beautiful ... that incessant pursuit back to what is irretrievable ... and all those we end up hurting in the path toward it ..."

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, "In bed, The kiss," 1892.

*   *   *

Unlike Romeo and Juliet, who fell madly and hopelessly in love with each other against all odds, when they were only 13/14 years of age (and their almost impetuous passion, resulting in the tragic end), the protagonists in my favourite film of all time, In the Mood for Love (花樣年華), 周慕雲 Zhou Muyun and 蘇麗貞 Su Lizhen, were placed under very different circumstances.

Mr Zhou and Mrs Su were next-door neighbours. They passed each other by everyday, uttering nothing more than some polite and insignificant words to one another. It was 1960s Hong Kong, a time of social decorum, repressed and reinforced by hundreds, if not thousands of years of customs and traditions in Chinese culture. Their love for each other developed, or rather, they fell in love, due to the affair their respective spouses were having with one another, as Mr Zhou and Mrs Su discovered and confirmed the painful truth which has been secretly staring them in the face. Why were they not more pro-active in the film? You might ask. The mixture of unrequited love, of regret and irretrievable longing, and the way director Wang Kar-Wai handles these conditions of emotions, are what make this movie a true masterpiece. One feels dizzy and heartbeat quickens with this swooningly gorgeous film -- slow, sexy, utterly breathtaking and intoxicating. Imagine being on a gondola ride with the one person you are terribly, painfully in love/lust with, taking in all the sensual scenery around you and yet not able to do anything. That is another key of appreciating and feeling (with your heart, in your heart) In the Mood for Love as the cinematic gem that it truly is.


*Now, my favourite scene from the movie, when Mr Zhou whispers his secrets, which we viewers shall never know, into the hole of an old tree at Angkor Wat, and seals it with mud and grass so that they will never escape, and hopefully, the tree will share the burden...
This motif is referenced throughout in Wang's later film 2046, a sort of a poetic-oneiric, and even science fiction-like(!) continuation of the story of Zhou Muyun and Su Lizhen, where Mr Zhou, a writer, who can never seem to stop writing (and hallucinating) about his story with, and his yearning for the elusive Mrs Su who forever haunts his memories and his dreams.


他一直沒有回頭
他彷彿坐上一串很長很長的列車
在茫茫夜色中開往朦朧的未來

那些消逝了的歲月，彷彿隔著一塊 
積著灰塵的玻璃，看得到，抓不著。 
他一直在懷念著過去的一切。如果他 
能衝破那塊積著灰塵的玻璃，
他會走回早已消逝的歲月。

"Whom would it not remain for---that
longed-after, 
mildly disillusioning presence, which the solitary heart
so painfully meets. Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet? Fling the emptiness out of your arms
into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds
will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.
(...)
Isn't it time that we lovingly 
freed ourselves from the beloved and, quivering, endured: 
as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that 
gathered in the snap of release it can be more than
itself. For there is no place where we can remain.
(...)
and then in the startled space which a youth as lovely as a
god
had suddenly left forever, the Void felt for the first time
that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and helps 
us."

~Rainer Maria Rilke, from 'The First Elegy,' Duino Elegies, 
translated into English by Stephen Mitchell

*   *   *

Hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum
    Ingenio perii, Naso poeta, meo. 
At tibi qui transis, ne sit grave, quisquis amasti, 
    Dicere: Nasonis molliter ossa cubent. 

Here I lie, who played with tender loves, 
       Naso the poet, killed by my own talent. 
O passerby, if you've ever been in love, let it not be too much for you to say: 
       May the bones of Naso lie gently. 

(Ovid, Tristia 3.3.73–76)

*   *   *

Leaving you with one last quotation, on time, eternity, the art of love and the art of waiting. Also from Mr. Surraville, in response to Jacob's love story in Genesis (I guess you just have to read the Bible now, kids!):

A true love's gaze always carries an inevitable sense of eternity that transcends all the temporary things of this world.

願 Blessings

Between mountain and sea there is faith, 
Silent and without a word. 
Between the pagodas there is a prayer flag, 
Having you in its lingering heart. 
Between meeting and parting there is kismet, 
Ephemeral and forever-changing. 
Between you and me there is yearning, 
Wistfully haunting our souls and our hearts. 


In this life, on this path, I only wish to see you again 
Even if heavens collapse 
and earth 
enervates

*Thank you dear María for sharing this word and this image...

*  *  *  *  *


And here is the original lyrics in Chinese which I quickly translated into English above. For the(my) love of Faye Wong...


《願》


在山水之間 在佛塔之間 在聚散之間 在你我之間 
在山水之間 有一份信念 是靜默無言 
在佛塔之間 有一條經幡 是為你掛牽 
在聚散之間 有一劫宿緣 是無常善變 
在你我之間 有一縷思念 是魂繞夢牽 


此生上路 哪怕天絕地穿 只願途中 能再與你相見 


嗡嘛呢唄嚒哄舍


And leaving you with another kiss...

image via Cha: An Asian Literary Journal facebook page