Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Ahh, the new year and more resolutions not to keep.  While not specifically spoken, I decided that this year I would read a bit more poetry.  To read more poetry means that you also reflect on and want to share that poetry, and I will attempt, though I doubt my efforts will last long, to update this blog a bit more regularly.

This evening I was reading Pablo Neruda's "The Book of Questions," translated by William O'Daly, and in poem VIII, I discovered the following lines:

Do tears not yet spilled
wait in small lakes?

Or are they invisible rivers
that run toward sadness?

I am still working out what I think of these lines, but I found them evocative, and wanted to post.

One thing that came to mind is the finite-ness of the small lake versus the perceived infinity of rivers, or the release of limited tears, like a dam overflowing due to a specific event, over the constant crying of someone who can not get over an event, whether loss of a loved one or some other traumatic event.

Perhaps not the most joyous thoughts for the new year, but when reading poetry randomly, rather than choosing a certain theme, you don't always get happy.