Reflections of a Man's Heart

A woman is singing in the valley. The shadows falling blot her out, but her song spreads over the fields.

Her heart is broken, like the jar she dropped this afternoon among the peebles in the brook. As she sings, the hidden wound sharpens on the thread of her song, and becomes thin and hard. Her voice in modulation dampens with blood.

In the fields the other voices die with the dying day, and a moment ago the song of the last slow-poke bird stopped. But her deathless heart, alive with grief, gathers all the silent voices into her voice, sharp now, yet very sweet.

Does she sing for a husband who looks at her silently in the dusk, of for a child whom her song caresses? Or does she sing for her own heart, more helpless than a babe at nightfall?

Night grows maternal before this song that goes to meet it; the stars, with a sweetness that is human, are beginning to come out; the sky full of stars becomes human and understands the sorrows of this world.

Her song, as pure as water filled with light, cleanses the plain and rinses the mean air of day in which men hate. From the throat of the woman who keeps on singing, day rises nobly evaporating toward the stars.

- Gabriela Mistral

I was alone on a sunny shore

by the forest's pale blue lake,

in the sky floated a single cloud

and on the water a single isle.

The ripe sweetness of summer dripped

in beads from every tree

and straight into my opened heart

a tiny drop ran down.

- Edith Södergran

Si muero, que me pongan desnudo,

desnudo junto al mar.

Serán las aguas grises mi escudo

y no habrá que luchar.

Si muero que me dejen a solas.

El mar es mi jardín.

No puede, quien amaba las olas,

desear otro fin.

Oiré la melodía del viento,

la misteriosa voz.

Será por fin vencido el momento

que siega como hoz.

Que siega pesadumbres. Y cuando

la noche empiece a arder

soñando, sollozando, cantando,

yo volveré a nacer.

- José Hierro, Quinta del 42

When they plow their fields

and sow seeds in the earth,

when they care for their wives and children,

young brahmans find riches.

But I've done everything right

and followed the rule of my teacher.

I'm not lazy or proud.

Why haven't I found peace?

Bathing my feet

I watched the bathwater

spill down the slope.

I concentrated my mind

the way you train a good horse.

Then I took a lamp

and went into my cell,

checked the bed,

and sat down on it.

I took a needle

and pushed the wick down.

When the lamp went out

my mind was freed.

- Patacara

I've come to the house of the Immortals:

In every corner, wildflowers bloom.

In the front garden, trees

Offer their branches for drying clothes;

Where I eat, a wine glass can float

In the springwater's chill.

From the portico, a hidden path

Leads to the bamboo's darkened groves.

Cool in a summer dress, I choose

From among heaped piles of books.

Reciting poems in the moonlight, riding a painted boat . . .

Every place the wind carries me is home.

- Yu Xuanji

Wisdom is
sweeter than honey,
brings more joy
than wine,
illumines
more than the sun,
is more precious
than jewels.
She causes
the ears to hear
and the heart to comprehend.

I love her
like a mother,
and she embraces me
as her own child.
I will follow
her footprints
and she will not cast me away.

- Makeda, Queen of Sheba.

I bless the daily labor of my hands,

I bless the sleep that nightly is my own.

The mercy of the Lord, the Lord's commands,

The law of blessings and the law of stone.

My dusty purple, with its ragged seams . . .

My dusty staff, where all light's rays are shed.

And also, Lord, I bless the peace

In other's houses - other's ovens' bread.

- Marina Tsvetaeva

We who cut mere stones must always be envisioning cathedrals

- Anonymous

I need nothing but God's mercy.

I go through life in a drunken stupor.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

O you strangely lightening reality -

- - - - - - - is there an amphora

for my few drops of oil of roses?

- Edith Södergran

Today I received an e-mail by surprise from Marianne, my ex-wife's sister.

She visited Bcn while I was in Seoul, and she arrived from Buenos Aires just several hours before I departed to Seoul, so we didn't have much time to talk.

She told me she was here to visit a special friend, Alex, so I offered her to stay at home with him while I was in Seoul.

After I came back, we just met once, and even if we couldn't talk privately at any moment, I remember that, when inquired, I told her in the taxi: "set a very high standard, and don't be afraid to demand what you want, because you will not come back Bcn if you return to Buenos Aires".

Well, today I received an e-mail today, telling me that the possibility to share those days alone with Alex was really important to the relation, and that . . . she risked telling Alex to come to live to Buenos Aires"!. And he said "yes, let's try"!

That's courage, baby. Well, well done.

Good luck jumping through hoops ^^