A Poem for Sunday

[Cleanthess]

Posting a poem on Sundays is a nice feature of other sites; so, since the most sincere form of flattery is imitation, let's do that here too.

My poor attempt at translating one of the most beautiful poems of the Spanish language:

Jaime Gil de Biedma, I will never be young again from Poemas Postumos, 1968.

That life was for real
one begins to understand later
-like all young people, I was going
to have the world at my feet.

I wanted to leave my mark
and exit amid applause
-aging, dying, were only
the dimensions of the theater.

But as time has passed
an unpleasant truth has dawned
upon me: aging and dying
is the one plot of this play.

 

[Cleanthess]

Thank you for your kind words sophiagia. Nice nick, by the way, sophia + agia = holy wisdom.

When I was a teen I went through a gnostic phase. I still remember some of what I was taught. How wisdom dwelt in the Pleroma, fell in love with the monad, and how, because of this, she fell from the light of the Pleroma. Finding herself alone in the middle darkness, she felt fear, longing and desire (some would say sexual longing), she forgot who she was and how matter, spirit and divinity emanated from her. Her divine efflorescence became the Demiurge, who proceeded to create our world using wisdom's matter and wisdom's spirit as his dark materials. Because of this, all beings in this world have a little bit of holy wisdom's light inside themselves. So, when the Word of God came to rescue Holy Wisdom from the Demiurge, and bring her back to the Pleroma, it had to teach its Gnosis to men, so that they could free the light inside of themselves from the darkness of this world.

According to the Gospel of John: 'Life was in the Word, and that life was the light of men. And that light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.'

Which brings me to today's poem, by Ramprasad Sen:

Love Wisdom, Mind;
She can ferry you across
the sea of birth and death.

Taxes must be paid in this worthless marketplace,
but it's stupid to trust in wealth and family.
Have you forgotten your past?
Where were you? Where have you come to?
Where are you going?

You wear nothing
but a costume in the world.
Maya, the Enchantress makes
Illusions for you to dance, so you dance.
Don’t you sit on Her lap!
It’s Her prison.

Egotism, hatred, love,
attachment to the pleasing things of this world--
why did you share
your kingdom with these?
Tell me that!

What you've done can't be helped;
the day is almost over.
On a jeweled island
God sits in God's house.
Contemplate Her always.
Prasad says.

 

[Cleanthess]

Heraclitus by the lake.
Lucian Blaga

Down by where the green paths gather near the waters,
It's quiet around there, heavy and deserted by man.
Shut up, you dog, taste the wind with your snout, be quiet.
Do not drive away the memories, which are coming,
Crying and sobbing, to bury their faces in ashes.

Standing on stumps I venture to read my fate
On the palm of autumnal leaves.
Time, when you want to take the shortest path,
Where do you set to?

My footsteps echo in the shadows,
As if they were rotten fruits
Falling off from an unseen tree.

O, how hoarse old age has rendered
The spring fountain's voice.

Any lifted hand is just another doubt.

Sorrows are required
for the low mystery of the serfs.

Thorns thrown from the shore into the lake,
By them, I'm torn apart in heaven.

Heraclit langa lac

Langa ape verzi s-aduna cararile.
Sunt linisti pe-aici, grele si parasite de om.
Taci cane, care-ncerci vantul cu narile, taci.
Nu alunga amintirile ce vin
plansul sa-si ingroape fetele-n cenusa lor.
Sprijinit de butuci imi ghicesc soarta
din palma unei frunze tomnatice.

Vreme, cand vrei sa iei drumul cel mai scurt,
pe unde apuci?

Pasii mei rasuna in umbra,
parc-ar fi niste roade putrede
ce cad dintr-un pom nevazut.
O, cum a ragusit de batranete glasul izvorului!

Orice ridicare a manii
nu e decat o indoiala mai mult.
Durerile se cer
spre taina joasa a taranii.

Spini azvarl de pe tarm in lac,
cu ei in ceruri ma desfac.