Poem: Think of Others

As you prepare your breakfast, think of others
     (do not forget the pigeon's food).
As you conduct your wars, think of others
     (do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
     (those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
     (do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
     (those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you liberate yourself in metaphor, think of others
     (those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
     (say: “If only I were a candle in the dark").

                                Mahmoud Darwish

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wine, poetry, or virtue

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

                                        Charles Baudelaire, translated by Louis Simpson

 

 

 

 

Payment

People pay for what they do,
and, still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become.
And they pay for it very simply: by the lives they lead.

                James Baldwin, No Name in the Street 

 

 

 

 

 

How, indeed?

When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away?

    William Shakespeare, Cymbeline