The Inner Valley

The night proceeds and dwindling Prepares the day's rebirth. An airman is ascending Above the sleeping earth. And almost disappearing In cloud, a tiny spark, He now is like a cross-stitch, A midget laundry-mark. Beneath him are strange cities, And heavy traffic-lanes, And night-clubs, barracks, stokers, And railways, stations, trains. The shadow of his wing-span Falls heavy on the cloud. Celestial bodies wander Around him in a crowd. And there, with frightful listing Through emptiness, away Through unknown solar systems Revolves the Milky Way. In limitless expanses Are headlands burning bright. In basements and in cellars The stokers work all night. And underneath a rooftop In Paris, maybe Mars Or Venus sees a notice About a recent farce. And maybe in an attic And under ancient slates A man sits wakeful, working, He thinks and broods and waits; He looks upon the pla...

I don't believe in omens or fear Forebodings. I flee from neither slander Nor from poison. Death does not exist. Everyone's immortal. Everything is too. No point in fearing death at seventeen, Or seventy. There's only here and now, and light; Neither death, nor darkness, exists. We're all already on the seashore; I'm one of those who'll be hauling in the nets When a shoal of immortality swims by. If you live in a house - the house will not fall. I'll summon any of the centuries, Then enter one and build a house in it. That's why your children and your wives Sit with me at one table, - The same for ancestor and grandson: The future is being accomplished now, If I raise my hand a little, All five beams of light will stay with you. Each day I used my collar bones For shoring up the past, as though with timber, I measured time with geodetic chains And marched across it, as though it were the Urals. I tailored ...

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. Today, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose. Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears. Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup. And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl’s. ...

“All Creatures exist for a purpose. Even an ant knows what that purpose is -not with its brain, but somehow it knows. Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist.” * ****** John (Fire) Lame Deer (1903–1976), Lakota Sioux Nation. ◙ Oswaldo Guayasamin

‘This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,’ whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. ‘Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!’ Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror -indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy- but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend, and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew. Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him i...

La danza ya no suena, la música dejó de ser palabra, el cántico creció del movimiento. Orfeo, dividido, anda en busca de esa unidad áurea que perdimos. Mundo desintegrado, tu esencia reside tal vez en la luz, más neutra ante los ojos desaprendidos de ver; y bajo la piel, ¿qué turbia imporosidad nos limita? De ti a ti, abismo; y en él, los ecos de una prístina ciencia, ahora exangüe. Ni tu cifra sabemos. Ni aun captándola tuviéramos poder de penetrar. Yerra el misterio en torno de su núcleo. Y restan pocos encantamientos válidos. Quizás apenas uno y grave: en nosotros tu ausencia retumba todavía, y nos estremecemos que una pérdida se forma de esas ganancias. Tu medida, el silencio la ciñe, la esculpe casi, brazos del no-saber. Oh fabuloso mudo paralítico sordo nato incógnito la raíz de la mañana que tarda, y tarde, cuando  la línea del cielo en nosotros se esfuma, tornándonos extranjeros más que extraños. En el duelo de las horas, tu imagen atravie...

“One day a man came to God, an old farmer, and he said, "Look, you may be God, and you may have created the world, but one thing I must say to you: you are not a farmer. You don't know even the basic principles of farming. You have something to learn." God said, "What's your advice?" The farmer said, "You give me one year's time, and just let things be according to me, and see what happens. There will be no poverty left!" God was willing, and one year was given to the farmer. Naturally, he asked for the best, he thought only of the best--no thunder, no strong winds, no dangers for the crop. Everything was comfortable, cozy, and he was very happy. The wheat was growing so high! When he wanted sun, there was sun; when he wanted rain, there was rain, and as much as he wanted. This year everything was right, mathematically right. But when the crops were harvested, there was no wheat inside. The farmer was surprised. He asked God, ...

The sea cries with its meaningless voice Treating alike its dead and its living, Probably bored with the appearance of heaven After so many millions of nights without sleep, Without purpose, without self-deception. Stone likewise. A pebble is imprisoned Like nothing in the Universe. Created for black sleep. Or growing Conscious of the sun's red spot occasionally, Then dreaming it is the foetus of God. Over the stone rushes the wind Able to mingle with nothing, Like the hearing of the blind stone itself. Or turns, as if the stone's mind came feeling A fantasy of directions. Drinking the sea and eating the rock A tree struggles to make leaves- An old woman fallen from space Unprepared for these conditions. She hangs on, because her mind's gone completely. Minute after minute, aeon after aeon, Nothing lets up or develops. And this is neither a bad variant nor a tryout. This is where the staring angels go through. This is where all the stars bow ...

Fui al río, y lo sentía cerca de mí, enfrente de mí. Las ramas tenían voces que no llegaban hasta mí. La corriente decía cosas que no entendía. Me angustiaba casi. Quería comprenderlo, sentir qué decía el cielo vago y pálido en él con sus primeras sílabas alargadas, pero no podía. Regresaba —¿Era yo el que regresaba?— en la angustia vaga de sentirme solo entre las cosas últimas y secretas. De pronto sentí el río en mí, corría en mí con sus orillas trémulas de señas, con sus hondos reflejos apenas estrellados. Corría el río en mí con sus ramajes. Era yo un río en el anochecer, y suspiraban en mí los árboles, y el sendero y las hierbas se apagaban en mí. Me atravesaba un río, me atravesaba un río! ******* Juan L. Ortíz (Puerto Ruiz, Entre Ríos, Argentina, 11 de Junio de 1896 ~ Paraná, Entre Ríos, 2 de Septiembre de 1978). ◙ Z. L. Feng

The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.   But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the ...

"Whoever reads philosophy reads himself as much as he reads the philosopher. I am in a dialogue with certain decisive events in my life as much as I am with the ideas on the page. Meaning is the matter of my existence. My effort to understand is a perpetual circling around a few obsessive images." ******* Dušan "Charles" Simić (Belgrade, Yugoslavia; 9 May 1938). ◙ Vakhtang Tato Akhalkatsishvili ******* “Quien lee un texto filosófico se lee a sí mismo en tanto lee al filósofo. Estoy en diálogo con ciertos eventos decisivos de mi vida en  la misma medida en que estoy en diálogo con las ideas impresas en la página. La búsqueda de sentido es la substancia de mi existencia. Mi esfuerzo por comprender es un perpetuo circular alrededor de unas pocas imágenes obsesivas.”

"But the crowd seldom can render a reason for its opinions; it thinks one thing today, another tomorrow.  For this cause, wise and prudent men are not in haste to adopt the opinions of the crowd." ******* Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( Copenhagen, Denmark, 5 May 1813 ~ Copenhagen, 11 November 1855). ◙ Matazo Kayama.

“A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence. ”  ******* Milan Kundera (Brno, Czechoslovakia, April 1, 1929). ◙ Jan Brueghel the Elder. Aeneas and the Sibyl in the Underworld (ca. 1600).  *******   “Una pregunta que no tiene respuesta es una barrera que no puede ser atravesada. Dicho de otro modo, precisamente aquellas preguntas que no tienen respuesta son las que determinan las posibilidades del ser humano, trazan las fronteras de la existencia humana." ~ Milan Kundera   G M T Detect language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarat...

He offered me a leaf like a hand with fingers. I offered him a hand like a leaf with teeth. He offered me a branch like an arm. I offered him my arm like a branch. He tipped his trunk towards me like a shoulder. I tipped my shoulder to him like a knotted trunk. I could hear his sap quicken, beating like blood. He could hear my blood slacken like rising sap. I passed through him. He passed through me. I remained a solitary tree. He a solitary man. ******* Nichita Stãnescu (Ploieşti, Romania, March 31, 1933 ~  Bucharest, Romania, December 13, 1983) ◙ Artwork: Vincent Van Gogh.

The greatest good is like water:       it benefits all life without being noticed. It flows even to the lowliest places       where no one chooses to be       and so it is very close to the Tao. It settles only in quiet locations. Its deepest heart is always clear. It offers itself with great goodness. It keeps its rhythm as it keeps its promises. It governs tributaries as it governs its people. It adapts to all necessities. It moves at the right moment. It never flaunts its goodness       and so it never attracts any blame. ******* 'Tao Te Ching'. Lao Tzu. Translation by Chao-Hsiu Chen. ◙ Rafał Borcz

Yo quiero ser llorando el hortelano de la tierra que ocupas y estercolas, compañero del alma, tan temprano. Alimentando lluvias, caracolas  y órganos mi dolor sin instrumento, a las desalentadas amapolas daré tu corazón por alimento. Tanto dolor se agrupa en mi costado, que por doler me duele hasta el aliento. Un manotazo duro, un golpe helado, un hachazo invisible y homicida, un empujón brutal te ha derribado. No hay extensión más grande que mi herida, lloro mi desventura y sus conjuntos y siento más tu muerte que mi vida. Ando sobre rastrojos de difuntos,  y sin calor de nadie y sin consuelo voy de mi corazón a mis asuntos. Temprano levantó la muerte el vuelo,  temprano madrugó la madrugada, temprano estás rodando por el suelo. No perdono a la muerte enamorada,  no perdono a la vida desatenta, no perdono a la tierra ni a la nada. En mis manos levanto una tormenta de piedras, rayos y hachas estridentes sedienta de catástrofes y hambrienta. Quiero escar...