... and timely.
It’s the clouds, I think, that make it, the sky, sunset, sunrise, whatever goes on between. And reverse, the day and today’s thought from Bob Dylan, “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” That’s where I am, in retirement a success at last, doing what I DWP. That’s where it matters though, as we find out soon enough. Inevitable regrets, but important not to be ashamed when we get here.
It’s the moon too. Waning and a rising - -
Barbara Crafton’s piece this morning, a re-run from 2009, calls goodbyes to mind. Some vivid, some a stretch to remember, some tender. Some with tears stretching into the years, some requiring a long morning alone in a riverside park composing to face the rest of life and wondering whether that’s going to be possible.
Boat speeds by on a Bay so flat the boat had to have been on wheels. Or hovering, leaving not even the mark of wake.
7H is good enough for me who doesn't need to graduate to anything higher.
Anu Garg’s word this morning is tromometer, sounding out a favorite poet, Tomas Transtromer. Somewhere around here I have one of his books, except that it doesn’t seem to have made it in our relocation six blocks down the shoreline from house to heaven. Swedish, here are two English translations of one of his poems that stirs nostalgia. Poem is “The Couple” - -
First translation by Robert Bly.
The Couple
They turn the light off, and its white globe glows
an instant and then dissolves, like a tablet
in a glass of darkness. Then a rising.
The hotel walls shoot up into heaven’s darkness.
Their movements have grown softer, and they sleep,
but their most secret thoughts begin to meet
like two colors that meet and run together
on the wet paper in a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. The city however has come nearer
tonight. With its windows turned off. Houses have come.
They stand packed and waiting very near,
a mob of people with blank faces.
Second translation is by Robin Fulton.
The Couple
They switch off the light and its white shade
glimmers for a moment before dissolving
like a tablet in a glass of darkness. Then up.
The hotel walls rise into the black sky.
The movements of love have settled, and they sleep
but their most secret thoughts meet as when
two colours meet and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. But the town has pulled closer
tonight. With quenched windows. The houses have approached.
They stand close up in a throng, waiting,
a crowd whose faces have no expressions.
What would I do if starting over. Where would I be. Or would I be - -
Transtromer died last year, 83. Seems right, and good, ...
DThos+