Transformed by Translation
The ringing, in my ears, is circular, cyclic, it comes and goes as if a reverberation to remind me, that at least in my left ear there is life, there is presence. It as if it is a reminder that I must, among other things, I must attend to this journal. What do they say: use it or lose it. I don't want to lose it.
To calm myself down I take a cup of coffee, and slowly read Pablo Neruda's poem Keeping Quiet. Now we will count to twelve and we will keep still...Now I'll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.
Today we have snow, yesterday the cold spell was just arriving though I know not from which direction, for I was immersed in creating my new website which is becoming an obsessive kind of task. So much so that with the impatience of a man who wants to get back to his work I clumsily break the yolks of both eggs in my breakfast frying pan.
I'm sure that I have seen a different translation for the last line, I will look it up, meanwhile, my inbox receives 30 journaling prompts for self-reflection, the second of which is something along the lines of if I could talk to my teenage self this is what I would say.
It might go like this: don't be such a mardy arse, the eggs are the same whether the yolk is broken or not, although my mum didn't break the yolks when she, diligently and with unconditional love, cooked my breakfast every morning.
Right, I have to go, it is our Monday morning writer's group at ten. But first to bathe and listen to some good old country music, which usually starts with Willy Nelson's She is Gone. Yes, that's something else I would have said in my teenage years.
The poem today is a prose piece:
In search of words
If I ask you to be quiet it is because I wish to quietly write these words. Words of exploration, into a time and a place, where quiet reflections in the present moment may become a blessing.
Ouch! That’s not at all how I meant to begin. Yet it is how I began, and so we must live with it.
In that quiet place, which I asked for, I would happily ask you to join me. I have been there before. I hope for you somewhere similar also. In a garden, or in a room, or in a stadium or in a concert hall full of strangers.
Flip! This is not the intention being followed faithfully at all. Yet the intention is faithful, of that I assure you.
With a singular cumulus cloud, in an otherwise clear blue sky. Peaceful, yes, also reasonably quiet. So quiet that I may whisper to you of my purpose. I may quietly reveal to you my desired direction.
Good heavens! A routine, or a rhythm, yet one which I feel must be broken, if we are ever to follow the light.
A light, a quiet light, a light of the heart, a light of the soul, a light of the body, a light of the mind; a light filled with effervescence, a light undulated with the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Yes, yes that’s better. A point of single-minded focus, into the haze, of the sunrise’s effect upon the morning dew.
If I ask you to take time to reflect, it is because I wish to take time to reflect myself. Together to find a time and a place where our representatives will be asked to open the doors, that is those particular doors which we wish to be opened.
