this one

 

 

 

 

 

.

I am not I.

I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.


—Juan Ramón Jiménez

 

.  .  .

We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree 

Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now…


—T.S. Eliot 

.

this one

 

 

 

 

 

.

I am not I.

I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.


—Juan Ramón Jiménez

 

.   .   .

We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree 

Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now…


—T.S. Eliot 

.

the first night

 

.

The worst thing about death must be
the first night.

—Juan Ramón Jiménez



.

Before I opened you, Jiménez,

it never occurred to me that day and night

would continue to circle each other in the ring of death,

but now you have me wondering

if there will also be a sun and a moon

and will the dead gather to watch them rise and set

then repair, each soul alone,

to some ghastly equivalent of a bed.

Or will the first night be the only night,

a darkness for which we have no other name?

How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death,

How impossible to write it down.

This is where language will stop,

the horse we have ridden all our lives

rearing up at the edge of a dizzying cliff.

The word that was in the beginning

and the word that was made flesh—

those and all the other words will cease.

Even now, reading you on this trellised porch,

how can I describe a sun that will shine after death?

But it is enough to frighten me

into paying more attention to the world’s day-moon,

to sunlight bright on water

or fragmented in a grove of trees,

and to look more closely here at these small leaves,

these sentinel thorns,

whose employment it is to guard the rose.


—Billy Collins

.

i am this one

.

I am not I.

I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.

–Juan Ramón Jiménez 

.