Today is not like those
Other bright winter days.
The sun is here,
the trees their nudist queer,
and green slumber grasses
quiver with the nutty squirrels.
Let’s take a walk,
Upside down.
January 9, 2013
November 12, 2012
Lately, some morning exchanges were like this…
T: [to me who’s lying down with the laptop on my belly and my head a bit tilted so I can see the monitor] Good morning, my love. Facebook yoga again?
Me: Yes, honey.
Or this…
T: Good morning. How’s everyone in Facebook this morning? Is everyone OK?
Me: Never been better, honey.
But today, while preparing our breakfast together..
T: You know what are you gonna do today?
Me: Gonna go to Kenilworth if it won’t rain. Or maybe not.
T: And what else?
Me: Attend the evening yoga class?
T: Very good, my love. Message me so I can pick you up from there.
Me: Ah honey.
October 5, 2012
Cooked dinner the other day hopefully to break T’s winning streak on south asian soups! The subsequent food conversation (profuse use of terms of endearment edited) had a twist on happiness approach, which still keeps me thinking..
T: Hmm this is very good..Looks good, smells good. What do you call this again?
Me: Pad Thai. I hope you’ll like it. It’s a common street food in Bangkok..
T: Pathai?
Me: Nope, that would mean dead. We don’t eat the dead here, do we? It’s Pad Thai.
T: PaD Thai… I’m gonna finish all these. I’m happy with this dish..
Me: I hope it will help you gain more kilos, because ultimately, happiness lies on whether you have been nourished..
T: But I am already happy with just eating this.
Me: Well, happiness should be measured from the result..
T: I’m happy now.
Me: True, I can’t argue with how you feel, but..
T: I am happy.
Me: Fine.
T: I also agree on the nourishment.
Me: And the food we are able to get is just one factor to that.. So it’s huge happiness among other sources of happiness.
T: Exactly.. The almonds here go well with the whole stuff. Excellent.
Me: Right.
September 9, 2012
Love is no assignment for cowards. -Ovid
[from ecosalon]
August 11, 2012
Yesterday I felt that my ode wouldn’t
get up off the ground.
It was time, it should
at least
show a green leaf.
I scratched the earth: “Get up,
sister ode”
– I said to her –
“I promised to produce you,
don’t be scared of me,
I’m not going to step on you,
ode with four leaves,
ode for four hands,
you’ll have tea with me.
Get up,
I will crown you among the odes,
we’ll go out to the seashore
on our bicycles.”
Nothing doing.
Then,
high up in the pines,
laziness
appeared naked,
she led me off dazzled
and sleepy,
she showed me on the sand
little broken pieces
of material from the ocean,
wood, seaweed, stones,
feathers of seabirds.
I looked for yellow agates
but didn’t find any.
The sea
filled all spaces,
crumbling towers,
invading
the coasts of my country,
pushing forward
successive catastrophes of foam.
Alone on the sand
a ray opened
a ring of fire.
I saw the silvered petrels
cruise and like black crosses
the cormorants
nailed to the rocks.
I set free
a bee writhing in a spiderweb,
I put a little stone
in my pocket,
it was smooth, very smooth
like bird’s breast,
meanwhile on the coast,
all afternoon,
sun and fog wrestled.
Sometimes
the fog was pregnant
with light
like a topaz
at other times a moist
ray of sun fell,
and yellow drops fell after it.
At night,
thinking about the duties of my
fugitive ode,
I took off my shoes
by the fire,
sand spilled from them
and right away I was falling
asleep.
-Pablo Neruda
(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Here and Away 