Translations
Translators of poems are enjoying a day off. There is no one here to explain what I mean. Within the realm of linguistic art, translation holds a place of reverence and necessity. Bridging cultural divides, the translator's workday may cease, but the nuances they navigate never do. Absence only heightens awareness—of stones cast against a window pane, stirring ripples of pain and ambiguity.
Stones. Pain. Stones hit the window pane. Whether cast in malice, mischief, or by mere happenstance, stones and words alike shatter the calm surface of comprehension, leaving us to question what is perceived and what the author truly means.
Was that a stone? Where? Occasionally, the literary throw is so stealthy, so surreptitious, one hardly notices the ripple until the glasslike surface of the pond or the window pane of the soul is already fractured.
Reflections in Age and Art
With age comes a certain wisdom, but also a kindling of paranoia—a heightened sensitivity to the scattered pebbles of time The older I get, the more paranoid. This paranoia stems not from a fear of malevolence but rather from the awareness of life's fleeting nature, the impending dim of vision both literal and metaphorical.
'I see the first signs of cataracts,' observed my ophthalmologist, a brunette. Clarity of sight is something to be cherished, as is clarity of thought—what the poet saw, what they missed, all come under the microscope of introspection.
The Catalyst of Memory: Sorting a Tray of Slides
Sorting a Tray of Slides explores the inevitable conflation of past experiences. As images of sunny rooms and colored trips jumble together, the brilliance of details once vivid, now falters into the dim obscurity of shadow.
Interspersed with contemplations of art and memory All those beautiful galleries filled with art and Queen Anne chairs, we navigate through the sunny yellow of a room that lingers longer than the others. It acts as a bastion against the entropy of the mind, holding on to the warmth and lightness of days bathed in sun.
Divine Deliberations: Theologians at Lunch
Even in whimsy, profundity is not lost. It makes perfect sense, said Erasmus to Aquinas. Theologians tethered to the earthly rituals of salt passing and pizza ordering, even as their minds wander the ethereal plains of divine philosophy.
Like the fly on the wall, the poetic voice eavesdrops on the sacred and the profane, leading us to ponder the thin lines that often separate the two realms.
When Nature Scripts Poetry: September Discards
Yet in the outdoors, within the diurnal turn of the world, new poetry arises, unbidden but not unappreciated. Water striders etch the surface as if the pond were glass. Such images bring forth the haiku within, setting forth creativity that breathes life into the fading flora of the fading year.
The poet, witness to the seasonal transition, contemplates the natural jeweller who leaves behind scales and eyes as the curtain of summer draws to a close. There's an austere beauty in the process, a natural discarding that the poet grasps and molds into verse.
The Interplay of Light and Memory in Travel
As depictions of travel wend their way into the poetic tableau, it is the interplay of light and memory that casts the longest shadow. It's the sun we want: the warmth on our arms, the freckles on a young nose, the echoing laughter in rooms now drowned by time's relentless tide.
Travel not only takes us to new locales but also embeds within us photons of experiences—energizing, enigmatic, and ultimately ephemeral. These photons, once entangled with the essence of the voyager, resonate through the years, waiting to be unraveled by the artistic hand in a yellow room, by a tranquil pond, or in the company of theologians divinely musing over lunch.
The journey across lands and through time becomes, in itself, a layered tapestry, yarn spun from the golden threads of the sun—a motif recurrent throughout the pages of the Samsara Quarterly Index of Contributors, wherein each traveler finds their reflection, their shadow, their light.