You killed me just once,
but you bury me everyday.
Let me be alone
with the newly born sprouts
on my grave.
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November 25, 2006
November 24, 2006
a Latin proverb
Dum spiro, spero !
= While I breathe, I hope
This time I came upon a Latin proverb which was the motto of some royal families in history. I don't know what makes a royal family choose a hopeful saying as a motto. They do not seem to need hope. I think "Hope" is a more proletarian wish. Isn't it?
;)
November 21, 2006
purification
" I love to be among the little children,sir! How I love to hear their prattle and their little voices lisping merry rhymes!Oh, sir! can you think of a more innocent way of earning a living, than to sell good ice-cream at modest prices to little children,after so many years of selling tricks to dirty old men.Why, each day in that white, well-scrubbed, shining ice-cream parlour was a positive purification! Don't you think sir, that in heaven we shall all eat nothing but ice-cream?"
from : Nights at the Circus
I think it is true that some foods can purify , I have the same feeling for cold milk, and vegetables as well as ice-cream.
Today's new word:
Mirage :
1) a strange effect of hot air conditions in a desert, in which objects appear which are not really there
2) a dream, hope, or wish that cannot come true : persuing the mirage of world peace
etymological hint: from Fr. mirage, from se mirer "to be reflected," from L. mirare (see mirror).
November 14, 2006
Canterbury Tales
I’m learning Middle English pronunciation. It sounds ancient and whenever I read a middle English text (for example Chaucer’s Canterbury tales) I feel like being among those pilgrims that decided to go to Canterbury and tell those funny and interesting tales to each other. At that time (14th century), traveling was not usual because it was dangerous and time-consuming and the only acceptable form of it was pilgrimages when people visited a sacred place, for instance, a saint’s shrine. Canterbury Tales is the collection of the stories of a group of pilgrims that go to a journey to visit St. Thomas Beckett’s shrine in Canterbury. You can listen to the beginning verses of the general prologue and realize what I mean by Middle English pronunciation. :
1 Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote When April with its sweet-smelling showers
2 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
3 And bathed every veyne in swich licour
And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
4 Of which vertu engendred is the flour; By which power the flower is created;
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
6 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
In every wood and field has breathed life into
7 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
The tender new leaves, and the young sun
8 Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne, Has run half its course in Aries,
9 And smale foweles maken melodye,
And small fowls make melody,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open ye Those that sleep all the night with open eyes
11 (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
(So Nature incites them in their hearts),
12 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
13 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, And professional pilgrims to seek foreign shores,
14 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; To distant shrines, known in various lands;
15 And specially from every shires ende And specially from every shire's end
16 Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
Of England to Canterbury they travel,
17 The hooly blisful martir for to seke, To seek the holy blessed martyr,
18 That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. Who helped them when they were sick.
November 07, 2006
The fall
I fall every now and then
in the streets, in cafés, in trains.
I fall from low fences,
from tall buildings,
sometimes like a dry leaf,
sometime like a pebble,
sometimes like a human.
Often I dance during the fall,
or sing a hymn;
But most of the times I cry.
and cry and cry
and cry
and
cr
y
.
November 05, 2006
Nightmares, nightmares, nightmares...
It seems that I'll never get rid of them. It doesn't matter how I could persuade myself during the day that life could be tolerable and even joyful. When the night comes, it shows me how I was wrong.
November 03, 2006
How to enjoy a poem:
Encountering with an English poem (of course, when English is not your mother tongue) , the first thing you should consider is to be brave and not afraid of reading it once and not understand it (though, you may know all the words in isolation). This is very usual in the case of poems, especially modern ones.
Have confidence and try to read the poem several times. Read it loud, again and again to finally get the idea that lies behind the words and phrases. I would be very excited when I discover the meaning of a difficult text after several efforts. It’s like finding the treasure chest in a dark cave.
Of course, this is not the ultimate meaning. The text continues in your mind and is reproduced whenever you read it.
November 01, 2006
Now I am a lake...
Dear Nassir,
As you asked me about my weblog's name which is a verse of a poem by Sylvia Plath ( called ' Mirror') I am going to put the whole text here. This is one of her famous poems and the interpretations are various and from different perspectives. I liked the sense of loneliness that Plath has poured into these words. The lake is like a mirror, and the woman is bending over this mirror to find how she really is. She searches her true face all around the lake, trying to find her identity.
Now, following you can read the whole poem :
Mirror
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish