The palm at the end of the mind, beyond the last thought, rises in the bronze distance. A gold feathered bird sings in the palm, without human meaning, without human feeling, a foreign song. You know then that it is not the reason that makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine. The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Return for an Instant

What was it like, God of mine, what was it like?
—Oh unfaithful heart, indecisive intelligence!
Was it like the going by of the wind?
Like the disappearance of the spring?

As nimble, as changeable, as weightless
as milkweed seeds in summer . . . Yes! Indefinite
as a smile which is lost forever in a laugh . . .
Arrogant in the air, just like a flag!

   Flag, smile, milkweed pod, swift
spring in June, clear wind! . . .
Your celebration was so wild, so sad!

   All of your changes ended up in nothing—
remembrance, a blind bee of bitter things!—

I don’t know what you were like, but you were!

 

--Juan Ramon Jimenez

translated by Robert Bly

 

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