John Newton ...

... said the following at the furnael of his friend William Cowper who had depression ...

He drank tea with me in the afternoon. The next morning a violent storm overtook him ,,. I used to visit him often but no argument could prevail with him to come and see me. He used to point with his finger to the church and say: "You know the comfort I have had there and how I have seen the glory of the Lord in His house, and until I go there I'll not go anywhere else." He was one of those who came out of great tribulations. He suffered much here for twenty-seven years, but eternity is long enough to make amends for all. For what is all he endured in this life, when compared with thr rest which remaineth for the children of God."

... And wrote the following while he watched the dawn outside his window ...

The day is now breaking: how beautiful its appearance! How welcome the expression of the approaching sun! It is this thought makes the dawn agreeable, that it is the presage of a brighter light; otherwise, if we expect no more day than it is this minute, we should rather complain of darkness, than rejoice in the early beauties of the morning. Thus the Life of grace is the dawn of immortality: beautiful beyond expression, if compared with the night and thick darkness which formerly covered us; yet faint, indistinct, and unsatisfying, in comparison of the glory which shall be revealed.

Trust in a future which is yet to be fully revealed, while appreciating the beauty and wonders which this world has to offer now ...

Che Fece ... Il Gran Rifiuto

... by Constantine P Cavafy ... is a little poem from the past for one to ponder ...

For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It's clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,

he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he'd still say no. Yet that no-the right no-
drags him down all his life.

The best times of the day ...

... by Raymond Carver is beautifully simple, and warms one's heart on this cold cold Valentine's night ...

Cool summer nights.
Windows open.
Lamps burning.
Fruit in the bowl.
And your head on my shoulder.
These the happiest moments in the day.

Next to the early morning hours,
of course. And the time
just before lunch.
And the afternoon, and
early evening hours.
But I do love

these summer nights.
Even more, I think,
than those other times.
The work finished for the day.
And no one who can reach us now.
Or ever.

The late Mattia Pascal ...

... is an interesting little book by Luigi Pirandello ... I cannot make my mind up about it, but I do like this little passage.

"Every object is transformed within us according to the images it evokes, the sensations that cluster around it. To be sure, an object may please us for itself alone, for the pleasant feelings that a harmonious sight inspires in us; but far more often the pleasure that an object affords us does not derive from the object in itself. Our fantasy embellishes it, surrounding it, making it resplendent with images dear to us. Then we no longer see it for what it is, but animated by the images it arouses in us or by the things we associate with it. In short, what we love about the object is what we put in it of ourselves, the harmony established between it and us, the soul that it acquires only through us, a soul composed of our memories".

This concept can also apply to people and our relationship with them ... Sometimes, we do need some space and distance for clarity, and it reminds me a little of the "object-relation" idea ...

Peaceful the World lays me down ...

... is a song by Noah and the Whale ... it has taken me a long long time to pick up the pieces, to be able to breath fully, to find joy in little things again; be it a sunset, complicated writings, laughter with friends, letters from aboard, cakes with ten millions layers of chocolates, discovering long forgotten music, having meandering conversations, wandering under the Blue Lights ...

Oh, well it's hard to look deep into your soul.
Not everything you'll find will be perfect gold.
There are ghosts and demons that hide in the dark.
Oh, they wait till you find them and then they laugh.
Oh, they know that my body is no way good enough.
Know that my heart is no way strong enough
to bear the sorrows that love brings.
When I recoil in fear, oh, the demons shake.

But it's a hollow love for a heart with no blood in its veins.

Oh, there is no endless devotion,
that is free from the force of erosion.
Oh, if you don't believe in God,
how can you believe in love?
When we're all just matter that will one day scatter,
when peaceful the world lays us down.
Oh and finding love is a matter of luck,
and unettled lovers move from f*** to f***
Oh, and compare their achievements like discussing bereavements
And compare their abrasions with romantic quotations,
Oh, as peaceful, the world watches down.

But oh we were blown out of the water.
Oh, and we walk on the feet we have grown.
Oh, and we were given a heart, of which love is a part.
Oh, and we cornered the thing from which all life will spring.
And it gave value to the world that surrounds us.

But we consider the world just for a moment.
Oh, and it's gone before we even know.
Oh, but I'll follow it round yeah I'll follow it round.
Oh, I'll follow it round yeah I'll follow it round.
Till peaceful, the world lays me down.

She came to stay ... ...

... by Simone de Beauvoir is fictional autobiography about the complicated, painful relationships between Jean-Paul Sartre, Olga Kosakievicz and her. Despite its ending, the first few pages when she described their love is just beautiful and ultimately what one aspires to ...

"Pierre was on the stage, she was in the audience, and yet, for both of them it was the same play being performed in the same theatre. Their life was the same. They did not always see it from the same angle, for through their individual desires, moods, or pleasures, each discovered a different aspect. But it was, for all that, the same life. Neither time nor distance could divide them. There were, of course, streets, ideas, faces, that came into existence first for Pierre, and others first for Francoise; but they faithfully pieced together these scattered experiences into a single whole, in which "yours" and "mine" became indistinguishable. Neither one nor the other ever withheld the slightest fragment. That would have been the worst, the only possible betrayal".

Have yourself a merry little Christmas ...

... really captures the hopes and uncertainties we face at the end of each year, when we try to embrace the world afresh, praying for the encourage to wear those rose-tinted glasses once again ... Yet, "a shining star" mentioned in the song was personified two thousands years ago, at "O little town of Bethlehem", in which "in thy dark streets shineth / The everlasting Light / The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight" ...

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of Yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years we all will be together
If the Lord allows
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now"

Anna Karenin ...

... by Leo Tolstoy was one of my favourite books ten years ago, and its resonance still resounds today ... Karenin's letter to Anna may not be beautifully written, but the sentiment expressed is something which I aspire to, but can never attain ... To love someone who no longer loves you is at best difficult, and at times impossible ...

"I can see that my presence is disagreeable to you. Painful as it is for me to recognise this, I see that it is so and cannot be otherwise. I do not reproach you, and God is my witness that when I saw you at the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget all that had come between us and begin life anew. I do not regret, and shall never regret, what I did; my only desire was for your welfare, the welfare of your soul, and now I see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what would give you true happiness and peace of mind. I put myself entirely in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what is right."

Bright star ...

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

~ by John Keats ...

Leisure ...

... by W. H. Davies reminds me a little of what I have nearly lost in the past few months ... September and October have passed by in a blur, as I float from one mini-crisis to another ... People around me have been more than lovely, but somehow, the locus of control appears to remain in outer space, rather than internally, within my reach. Yet, this poem reminds me that life is very simple; one just needs to stop, pause, breath, "stand and stare" at God's creation upon our doorstep ...

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The Good Soldier ...

... by Ford Madox Ford is an interesting book, and the following passage describes the hopelessness of our situation on this earth ...

"I have come to be very much of a cynic in these matters; I mean that it is impossible to believe in the permanence of man's or woman's love. Or, at any rate, it is impossible to believe in the permanence of any early passion. As I see it, at least, with regard to men, a love affair, a love for any definite woman - is something in the nature of a widening of the experience. With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like an acquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture - all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love - all these things are like so many objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walk beyond the horizon, to explore. He wants to get, as it were, behind those eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he desired to see the world with the eyes that they overshadow. He wants to hear that voice applying itself to every possible proposition, to every possible topic; he wants to see those characteristic gestures against every possible background. Of the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do not think that it counts for very much in a really great passion. It can be aroused by such nothings - by an untied shoelace, by a glance of the eye in passing - that I think it might be left out of the calculation. I don't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire for consummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore a matter needing no comment at all. It is a thing, with all its accidents, that must be taken for granted, as, in a novel, or a biography, you take it for granted that the characters have their meals with some regularity. But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the craving for identity with the woman he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever, maybe said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.

So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.

And yet I do not believe that for every man there comes at last a woman - or no, that is the wrong way of formulating it. For every man there comes at last a time of life when the woman who then sets her seal upon his imagination has set her seal for good. He will travel over no more horizon; he will never again set the knapsack over his shoulders; he will retire from those scenes. He will have gone out of the business."

The Reader ...

... by Bernhard Schlink is a book about Holocaust, individual responsibility, justice, collective guilt, forgiveness, the irreversibility of time, the extent of reality in memory ... The last topic fascinates me, and is discussed in depth in "The Secret Scripture" by Sebastian Barry.

"At first I wanted to write our story in order to be free of it. But the memories wouldn't come back for that. Then I realized our story was slipping away from me and I wanted to recapture it by writing, but that didn't coax up the memories either. For the last few years I've left our story alone. I've made peace with it. And it came back, detail by detail and in such a fully rounded fashion, with its own direction and its own sense of completion, that it no longer makes me sad. What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus, the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.

At any rate, that's what I think when I just happen to think about it. But if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel guilty, the feeling of guilt return; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then. The geological layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nevertheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear. Maybe I did write our story to be free of it, even if I never can be."

The protagonist, Michael, wrote a poem in the book which reminds me of another poem ... the ambivalence, the uncertainity despite the togetherness ...

"When we open ourselves
you yourself to me and I myself to you,
when we submerge
you into me and I into you
when we vanish
you into me, and I into you

Then
am I me
and you are you"

This morning ...

... by Raymond Carver definitely sums up how I felt when I was swinging among the autumn leaves at Heinwehfluh ... the fleeting moment of tranquility ...

This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk -- determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts
began to wander. I had to will
myself to see what I was seeing
and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what
mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,
for a minute or two!) For a minute or two
it crowded out the usual musings on
what was right, and what was wrong -- duty,
tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat
with my former wife. All the things
I hoped would go away this morning.
The stuff I live with every day. What
I've trampled on in order to stay alive.
But for a minute or two I did forget
myself and everything else. I know I did.
For when I turned back i didn't know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.

A Lovely Song For Jackson ...

... by V.R. Lang for a lovely couple, whose wedding is by a magical lake ...

If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea,
I'd find you, you'd find me.
Fishes would see us and shake their heads
Approvingly from their submarine beds.
Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry,
And sea anemone smile us by.
Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

If I were an angel and lost in the sun,
You would be there, and you would be one.
Birds that flew high enough would find us and sing
Gladder to find us than for anything,
And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere
Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair.
Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile,
And all over heaven we'd laugh for a while.
Only the fishes would search and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

Late Fragment ...

... will be amazing lines on one's tombstone ...

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

~ Raymond Carver

Better not ...

by Erich Fried ... its ambivalence is just beautiful ...

Life
would perhaps
be easier
if I had
never met you

Less sadness
each time
when we must part
less fear
of the next parting
and the next after that

And not so much either
of the powerless longing
when you're not there
which wants only the
impossible
and that right away
next minute
and then
when that can't be
is hurt
and finds breathing difficult

Life
would perhaps be
simpler
if I hadn't met you
only it wouldn't be
my life

Elie Wiesel ...

... wrote about his conflicts with God, especially during and after the Holocaust, in the triology "Night", "Dawn" and "Day" ...

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains - one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel ... All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him ... The three victims mounted together onto the chains.
The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
"Long live liberty!" cried the two adults.
But the child was silent.
"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked.
At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over ...
Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive ...
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"Where is God now?"
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
"Where is He? Here He is - He is hanging here on the gallows ..."

We all have moments of questioning, of doubting, of uncertainty, even if the pain we face paled in comparison to those described by Elie Wiesel ... yet, it is how darkness turns into light which is fascinating about humans and God ...

Maybe sometimes, we just need to believe ...
"I believe in the sun, even when it doesn't shine.
I believe in love, even when I don't feel it.
I believe in God, even when He is silent."
~ an inscription on the wall of a cellar in Cologne (where some Jews remained hidden for the entire duration of the war)

Aubade ...

... by Larkin is beautiful ... the forces described by Freud; Eros (life) and Thantos (death) exist in all of us, battling all day long, but the "uncaring intricate rented world" continues to evolve, marching forward, as the dawn of the morning draws ...

I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

If ...

If time can hold
all the soundless tears in my dark eyes
all the inaudible longing in my shattered heart
all the unspoken words in my callous hands,

Then maybe, one day,
the tears will fall
the longings will cease
and the words will grow

Into a distant echo,
no longer to be seen, felt, or heard
but allowed us, the mortals,
to reflect on the irreversibility of time.

You and I both ...

... is a song by Jason Mraz which I have been listening to a lot recently and I think I am nearly there ... running out of words ...

Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me?
All things are gonna happen naturally
Oh, taking your advice and I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing.

Oh, but at often times those words get tangled up in a lines
And the bright light turns to night
Oh, until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me

See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words;
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words.
More words than I had ever heard, and I feel so alive.

And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy

And it's okay if you had to go away
Oh, just remember that telephones
Well, they work out of both ways
But if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I'll think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that's okay
Cause I'll remember everything you sang

Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of (of,)
And others just read of
and if you could see me now
Well, then I'm almost finally out of
I'm finally out of
Finally deedeedeedeedeede
Well I'm almost finally, finally
Out of words