Quotes about effort, page 10
Une nuit que j'étais près d'une affreuse Juive (On Night I Lay With A Frightful Jewess)
Une nuit que j'étais près d'une affreuse Juive,
Comme au long d'un cadavre un cadavre étendu,
Je me pris à songer près de ce corps vendu
À la triste beauté dont mon désir se prive.
Je me représentai sa majesté native,
Son regard de vigueur et de grâces armé,
Ses cheveux qui lui font un casque parfumé,
Et dont le souvenir pour l'amour me ravive.
Car j'eusse avec ferveur baisé ton noble corps,
Et depuis tes pieds frais jusqu'à tes noires tresses
Déroulé le trésor des profondes caresses,
Si, quelque soir, d'un pleur obtenu sans effort
Tu pouvais seulement, ô reine des cruelles!
Obscurcir la splendeur de tes froides prunelles.
One Night I Lay with a Frightful Jewess
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poem by Charles Baudelaire
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The Wren
It was a quiet morning;
As usual my wife Laureen opened the front door (leaving it open wide) in hopes that the cat would follow her out. (Little did she know that a small intruder had flown in through the open door.) After retrieving the morning newspaper, with coffee mug full of steaming coffee Laureen settled into
her morning ritual, with "Neferkitti" (our cat) snuggled on the bar stool next to her.
Suddenly there was a flutter and thump as a tiny wren flew into a window in the dining room.
The bird fell to the floor momentarily stunned. Taking advantage of the moment, with great speed and agility Neferkitti pounced on the helpless bird. Mouthing the bird softly, she presented her catch to her master. Horrified Laureen admonished the cat, screaming "Let her go". With great reluctance the cat dropped the bird on the floor. After a few moments the bird flew up to a tall cabinet, where she landed to assess her predicament.
At this time I was laying in bed reading, when I heard Laureen shout loudly "Ray get in here there is a bird in the house'. I slipped on a shirt, grabbed my glasses, and walked in just as the bird took flight and landed on the rail leading to my upstairs office. Walking up the stairs slowly I reached for the perched bird who quickly flew back down to the family room. Not seeing where she landed I searched the room. Suddenly she flew into a large picture window in the family room. The confused bird sat on the sill looking out of the window. I approached the bird, who made no attempt to fly off. I reached down, and with cupped hands gently picked up the traumatized bird. She chirped once and settled into my warm hands.
Making my way to the sliding door that leads to the outside deck I stepped out and opened my hands to release the bird. Gripping the index finger of my right hand she was reluctant to fly. I stood there, and time froze.
Our eyes met, and I felt the impact of what was happening;
From the wren's perspective here stood a god-like giant with the power of life and death over her. From my perspective there perched on a single finger was a tiny creature who I could crush with hardly any effort. In that brief moment we were both experienced the miracle, diversity and fragile nature of life.
"All creatures great and small"
Walking over to a bench on the deck and with palm up I waited for the bird to step off onto the safety of the bench and freedom. She gripped even more tightly, as if she'd found safety in my hands. With my left hand I gently coaxed her off my right hand onto the bench, where she stood looking around. She made no effort to fly away, so I went back through the door, closed it and stood watching, hoping that she was not seriously injured.
While walking up the stairs to my office I heard Laureen (who'd been watching) exclaim loudly;
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poem by Ray Lucero
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Seemed an eternity
The minute of failure
The little boy’s body stiffened, then relaxed. Stiffened then relaxed. Eyes wide open, staring fixedly, and unseeing at the ceiling.
The young doctor grimaced with the effort, pumping intensely with his hands as if trying to pump water from a deep and long dry well. His hands moved in cadence with the old “Bee Gee’s song Stayin Alive” playing unconsciously in his mind.
The E.T.s that had originally answered the call to the lad’s home with the always dreaded “possible drowning victim” still sounding in their ears, stood uneasily in the doorway watching the frenetic activity.
Their usual M.O. was to end their vigilance when they had delivered the patient to the Pediatric E.R., and return to their truck to await the always: soon to come “next emergency.”
This time they couldn’t pull themselves away with the usual detachment that was expected of them. It shouldn’t have been that way, but when the victim (unfairly or not) of whatever the trauma ‘du jour’ was, was just a kid, they seemed to feel a guilt or responsibility that wasn’t truly theirs.
They had given the first ‘breaths of life’ to the bluish lips at the family’s swimming pool. Had done the first compressions to the unrising chest, and now seemed vested somehow in the boy’s welfare. They couldn’t leave. They felt obligated to stay. As if just by their presence, somehow the lad would be helped. Failure was something they didn’t accept very easily in their profession.
The doctor nodded to the R.N. assisting him and then stepped back rubbing his tingling, aching hands and arms While the R.N. seamlessly picked up the Bee Gee beat, brow furrowed in concentration.
The video screen above the bed showing the boy’s vitals blinked with red and green lights. The screen would show green, (which was good) for a few moments… but then would return to the dreaded red. Hopes rising and falling with each change in color.
With the red screen returning more often, and more often, and the green less and less so, faces turned more grim. Eyes started averting others, as if there were a mutually shared shame that was spreading contagiously among the caregivers and the spectators. The mother sat stoically, staring almost without blinking, straight ahead at her son.
It was as if the grim reaper stood back hidden in the shadows, patiently awaiting the inevitable moment of concession of human effort and futility.
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poem by David Whalen
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L'action
Lassé des mots, lassé des livres,
Qui tiédissent la volonté,
Je cherche, au fond de ma fierté,
L'acte qui sauve et qui délivre.
La vie, elle est là-bas, violente et féconde,
Qui mord, à galops fous, les grands chemins du monde.
Dans le tumulte et la poussière,
Les forts se sont pendus à sa crinière
Et, soulevés par elle et par ses bonds,
De prodige en prodige,
Ils ont gravi, à travers pluie et vent, les monts
Des audaces et des vertiges.
L'action !
J'en sais qui la dressent dans l'air
Tragiquement, sur ciel d'orage,
Avec des bras en sang et des clameurs de rage ;
D'autres qui la rêvent sourde et profonde,
Comme une mer
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poem by Emile Verhaeren
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L'Europe
Un soir plein de clartés et de nuages d'or,
Du fond des cieux lointains, rayonne au coeur d'un port
Léger de mâts et lourd de monstrueux navires ;
L'ombre est de pourpre autour des aigles de l'Empire
Dont le bronze géant règne sur les maisons.
On écoute bondir, dans leurs beffrois, les cloches ;
D'héroïques drapeaux pendent aux frontons proches,
Et la gloire en tumulte envahit l'horizon.
Et c'est l'heure où le songe et l'effort se confondent,
Où l'on s'attarde, regardant au loin la mer,
A rêver ce que sont et l'homme et l'univers
Grâce à l'Europe intense et maîtresse du monde.
Depuis cent et cent ans
Que le sang roule en son coeur haletant,
Toujours, malgré les deuils et les fléaux voraces,
Et les guerres criant la haine à travers temps,
Elle éduqua ses races
A ne jamais planter
Les arbres de leur force et de leur volonté
Que dans le jardin clos des réalités sûres.
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poem by Emile Verhaeren
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Silent Towers Wait
Only darkness.
Filtered through.
Veil upon seam veil.
Life sustaining veil.
Comprising increasingly.
Denser earthbound air.
Only darkness filtered through.
Till it seems intensely blue.
Until appears aerial illusion.
Heavenly threaded palette.
Painted through composite.
Strands upon stretching gulf.
Encompassing life web strand.
Embryonic space.
An earthly atmosphere.
A birth blue sky.
Rise through
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poem by Terence George Craddock
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To Moliere
Unequaled genius, whose warm fancy knows
No rhyming labor, no poetic throes;
To whom Apollo has unlocked his store;
Whose coin is struck from pure Parnassian ore;
Thou, dextrous master, teach thy skill to me,
And tell me, Moliere, how to1 rhyme like thee!
You never falter when the close comes round,
Or leave the substance to preserve the sound;
You never wander after words that fly,
For all the words you need before you lie.
But I, who--smarting for my sins of late--
With itch of rhyme am visited by fate,
Expend on air my unavailing force,
And, hunting sounds, am sweated like a horse.
In vain I often muse from dawn till night:
When I mean black, my stubborn verse says white;
If I should paint a coxcomb's flippant mien,
I scarcely can forbear to name the Dean;
If asked to tell the strains that purest flow,
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poem by Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux
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Tribute to A Poet Saint
Oh Swami Muktananda Paramahansa that bliss of liberation you attained
by Guru Nityananda's grace emancipation in this very life you had gained.
You were a representative of the lineage of poet-saints that had gone before
showing how easy it was, by chanting the name of God, to meditate for sure.
You stressed the importance of repeating the mantra 'Om Namah Shivaya'
and that if done with love would bear fruit regardless of who was the sayer.
There was so much energy about you that one could feel, like an ever present force,
the supreme blessing of Guru Nityananda was with you always being its very source.
You were a living embodiment of chitishakti or divine power-knowledge-bliss
and most of all those who came before you could also easily experience this.
It appeared at times you were unapproachable if one was by your presence overawed
and that you were on the constant lookout for any sincere aspirant who was not bored.
You also emphasized and revealed the true nature of the guru-disciple relationship
stating in plain modern words what was expected of one like in an apprenticeship.
Many secrets of the inner path you divulged and laid bare in all your writings and talks
saying the receiving of Guru's grace was what made a difference on the path one walks.
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poem by George Krokos
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Jackop Zuma, South Africa, The World's Greatest News Ladies And Gentlemen Stop Anything Hear Is Your Invitation
JACKOP ZUMA JACOP ZUMA
South Africa is about to become a tolerable nation
South Africa is about to be born anew
Can you imagine a tolerable state?
The Deputy President of South Africa
They said you are the rapist
But the man kept silent
The man nodded silent
The court proved you to be not guilty.
They first started by saying you fraud the state money.
Now and then you brought the weapons illegal from abroad
But the man kept silent
The case was closed and it is then again open.
The court will then again close it
It will close it again because there is no fossil evidence that you were any fraudster.
Yes we as the Proudly South African agree
We agree that you are innocent
Today I am making the History
This is the History that will remain to be red by the millions of future generations
In Africa there once lived a man
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poem by Mthokozisi Ntokozo Maphumulo
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La Course
Vous m’avez dit :
Laisse-les vivre
Là-bas...
Que t’importent leurs bonds ou leurs pas
Sur l’herbe de l’aurore ou l’herbe de midi,
M’avez-vous dit ?
C’est vrai. Ma maison est haute et belle sur la place.
C’est vrai que ma maison est haute et belle et vaste,
Faite de marbre avec un toit de tuiles d’or ;
J’y vis ; j’y dors ;
Mon pas y traîne sur les dalles
Le cuir taillé de mes sandales,
Et mon manteau sur le pavé
Frôle son bruit de laine souple.
J’ai des amis, le poing levé,
Qui heurtent, en chantant, leurs coupes
A la beauté !
On entre ; on sort.
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poem by Henri de Regnier
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