Actually, the first is a quote from Julius Caesar. I'm sure I was to have read this in college--maybe i did? But I'm also sure it would not have resonated then, the way it does now.
Brutus:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
--Shakespeare. Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218-224.
how wonderful and wistful and resolute is "on such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves"?
and: do i have that in me?
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i love the second poem too, and i thought it a wonderful twist that i received the card on the same day that i had visited dia beacon for the first time...and saw louise bourgeois' spider:
(btw, spider is just about the only bourgeois work that i liked. what am i missing?)
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A Noiseless, Patient Spider
A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory , it stood, isolated;
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand.
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.
--Walt Whitman
***
a few light thoughts on el día at dia beacon to come...
