Edvard Munch On the Waves of Love (W. 81)
i wish that my trip to buenos aires were one and not seventy days away.
but who wants really to bring a troubled mind on a trip.
pack all this up now?
loneliness follows
better to stay home
wrestle it all out.
travel light
see clear
i can hear the advice
have your nails painted
buy a nice dress
drink a bottle of wine (my favorite)
those sweet nothings, no thanks
(been here and there before)
i know how to stay busy and distracted and amused
what i really want
to know how to live fully in this quiet
so a single heartbeat
(so loud and fast tonight)
and these soft, girly breaths
do not unsettle.
***
i couldn't sleep last night. my usual trick (tv) has not worked well recently. after a couple of hours of excruciating nothing, i finally picked up a book that had been given to me as i gift years ago, which i'd forgotten about--my books have so many little hiding places...
prayers at 3am.
the timing was right-on.
the first 3 poems that i read were the ones marked with tattered post-it notes.
here's a line from each:
i fell asleep thinking of him
let my head stop thinking. let me sleep in your arms.
we are such stuff that dreams are made of
whose sad heart picked these? the one who gave this to me?
or was it me? when and why?
i read others, over again and sometimes aloud.
all of a sudden i was weeping, reciting though tears.
then just as quickly, i stopped.
i turned out the lights, pulled the covers over me and finally...
***
here's one:
once, when I poured out bitter tears, when my hope dissolved in pain and scattered, and i was standing alone at the barren hill which hid the shape of my life in its narrow dark space--alone, as no one could be more alone, driven my unspeakable anxiety--strengthless, with just one thought left of need.--As i looked around for help, could not look forwards and not backwards, and hung on fleeting, extinguished life with infinite craving:--then came from blue distances--from the peaks of my old blessedness, a twilight spectacle--and with one stroke my birth's bond ripped--Light's chains. There the earthly splendor fled and sadness with it--misery flowed into a new, unplumbed world--You, Night-inspiration, heaven's sleep, came over me--the region lifted slowly up; over the region my released and newborn spirit floated. The hill became a cloud of dust--through the cloud i saw the transfigured features of my beloved. In her eyes rested the forever--I took her hands, and my tears were a glittering and unrippable bond. On her neck I wept overjoyed tears at the new life.--It was the first and the only dream--and just since then I've felt an unchangeable, eternal faith in the heaven of Night and its Light, the beloved.
-novalis, 1772-1801.
translated from german by dick higgins.
lovely, yes?
more to come, i think. hope you like but don't need them.
