Japanese Love Poem

Ono no Komachi

Original Japanese:
夢ぢには
あしもやすめず
かよへども
うつつにひとめ
見しごとはあらず

Romaji:
yumeji ni wa
ashi mo yasumezu
kayoedomo
utsutsu ni hitome
mishigoto wa arazu

English Translation:
Though I go to you
ceaselessly along dream paths,
the sum of those trysts
is less than a single glimpse
granted in the waking world.

Drowning

Some people drown in the sea of past deeds, things that haunt opaquely. Others sink under the waves of today, the assignments to hand in, the sorrows to combat, the joys to survive. And still others are driven under the cool translucent water of the future, struggling with the worst of all - the unknown.

The deceptive clarity of that water is what burns the most as it fills the lungs, the esophagus, and the mouth. Deception! Betrayal! The hidden shoals, reefs, wrecks under the waves. You said it was smooth sailing! Lies! Deception! BETRAYAL!

As the water wraps around, caressing the face with more intimacy and tenderness than any mother, who wouldn't wish to become a dolphin and to swim away with a strong tail to propel you deeper into the darkness? No matter how deep the dolphin goes, the pressures they submit to, the light they relinquish, they always rocket up out of the water - reaching for the moon, the sun, the star - arching over the broken water, becoming momentary joy, before plunging back down. Down and up.

For every down, there is always and opposite direction.

Snippet

The Crucifixion,
Salvador Dali (born
1904)
______
Abelard's idea was that
Christ came to be crucified
to evoke in man's heart the
sentiment of compassion for
the suffering of life, and so
to remove man's mind from
blind commitment to the
goods of this world. It is in
compassion with Christ that
we turn to Christ, and the
injured one becomes our
Savior.

Pg. 113 - The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell

O Tannenbaum

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat mich zur Weihnachtszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid soll mich was lehren!
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Trost und Kraft zu aller Zeit.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid soll mich was lehren!

Excerpt

From Cyrano de Bergerac

Second Marquis
[with little cries of joy]

Ah, gentleman! she is fearfully - terribly - ravishing!


First Marquis

When one looks at her one thinks of a peach smiling at a strawberry!



...That was just too bizarre for me to let it slide into the belfry.

Carpet Bombing

I am full of delectable Vietnamese cuisine. The foreign spices, herbs, and sauces all suit to electrify my palate in an array of color and sound that only the tongue can comprehend. The very act of eating, enhanced by foreign flavors, suits to enliven the ritual grown old through bland American foods - like the enlivening of sex in an old relationship by introducing new positions. It works and brings joy back to the diet.

Here I am - typing in a senior center an otherwise completely boring piece of literature that only my professor and I shall ever read. What is the point? The point is that, even though I'm not touching worlds or making waves, I am shaking the core of my being. Sometimes I think that's the most honorable accomplishment in the world. First I'll destroy my own misconceptions and childhood stereotypes. And then I'll destroy yours.

Watch out, world - I am going to make love to you in a way you've never felt before.

Throwing towels

Whole heartedly do I relinquish my two day learning streak. This morning I officially lacked the mental will to leave my nice warm bed, covered in a tiger skin blanket - fake, of course. Yesterday, I felt the disease tightening like the grip of a snake upon a wood mouse. I, being the mouse, felt my death and today was completely smothered by the need to spend an extra hour in bed. Ah, this is spring break.

Time to shower, pick up my basket and red riding cap, and off to grandmother's house I go.

Library - reading

I never thought reading, developing ideas, seeing patterns, drawing lines to connect the dots of history, and then writing my own conclusions could be so fun. I've spent the past two days in the local library working on my senior thesis. Granted, I've been wandering about the topic, checking email, youtube, facebook, and reading the titles of the books on the shelves in front of me: A Jockey's Life, Bowhunting, The Complete Brown Trout. One cannot say that I have been at 100% levels of productivity for the entirety of the past few days. But it's been fun for all the running around I've been doing.

For the first time in a long time, I'm having fun learning at my own speed. But the solidarity of this style of learning is palpable. It would be nice to have someone who is 'old hat' at the topic I am currently focusing on. Someone to bounce ideas off of, ask questions of, or to confer in when I have doubts about my train of thought. What I am left with is a very haphazard approach to writing and documenting my thoughts and findings. Is this what every researcher goes through? Is this the bumpy road to discovery and publication? What if I find or say something wrong? I hate generalizations but this is the only way that I can feel secure that I am not brainwashing people with falsehoods.

I hope that tomorrow will be the last day that I need to stay in the library. And yet... I will miss it. A public library is a beautiful place. All sorts of people are wandering in and out of here. Children, teenagers, poor people, people with canes, people with smells. they all come here with one purpose: to broaden their minds. Wittenberg Library is surely an isolated bubble that attracts only the students, professors, and authors of the area. I miss the people who are barely literate but want to read regardless. I miss the people who aren't looking for Machiavelli but rather Emily Dickinson or Stephen King.

To every place there is a feeling, I suppose. And in my stable ship of internal peace made of gossamer threads, I look around and smile at the beauty resonating from all the fucking variation.