Friday, July 24, 2009

Brilliant Sky, by Jean Joubert


Antonio Vivaldi - Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Gloria (Rv 589)

Never between the branches has the sky
burned with such brilliance, as if
it were offering all of its light to me,
to say – what? what urgent mystery
strains at that transparent mouth?
No leaf, no rustle . . . It's in winter,
in cold emptiness and silence, that the air
suddenly arches itself like this into infinity,
and glitters.

This evening, far from here,
a friend is entering his death,
he knows it, he walks
under bare trees alone,
perhaps for the last time. So much love,
so much struggle, spent and worn thin.
But when he looks up, suddenly the sky
is arrayed in this same vertiginous clarity.


Trans. by Denise Levertov, In
The Gift of Tongues, ed. by Sam Hamill

From Panhala yahoo group

7 comments:

Roxana said...

oh, it is beautiful, how can she write like this?!
and also: it is the poem i have been looking for - for that picture i sent you, remember? the bright sky between the glowing leaves...

thank you!!!

and good night :-)

Manuela said...

http://tinyurl.com/mudc2m
page 62 - to original, in french

i remember, how could i forget, that beautiful photo!

vise calde

Prospero said...

You know, tonight I was thinking about Malher's 9th, the 4th movement. So I find it on your blog and it's ... disconnected.

or unavailable in my area

or it's some force field has disavowed it.

The adagio would go nicely with this too, no?

Manuela said...

The Mahler was there, linked to one poem I wrote, which I've saved as draft now so it can't be seen. What happens with some posts is that I submit the poems to literary magazines and some mags are picky about the poems being published in advance, or rather wanting them not published anywhere, so I take them off the blog until I hear back - usually no's, and then I either post them back on the blog or send them out again, depending on my mood. So no mystery... this time.

Malher's 9th... I have a difficult relationship with it. I haven't been able to listen to it all yet. It brings me too close to grief I find hard to bear. Here's the link to the piece I had in the post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZhPE_XFY7I - I think you can find it all on youtube.

What were you thinking about it?

Manuela said...

to continue :) - i meant to say i can't comment on the adagio, as i don't know it that well. but i am so glad to see different connections with music! really glad.

maybe i should take out the links to music that is part of draft posts... i don't want to lose the links though... hmm, hard to know what to do. i know it's frustrating to click on links that don't work. i could revert them back to utube, yes, i think i;ll do that. not tonight :)

glad for your visit, too

Prospero said...

I first heard The adagio from the 9th in one of Anne-Marie Miéville's films. It just destroyed me (still does). The parent's of a young girl were breaking up and she was doing an improvised dance to this music. It was a perfect metonymy. The violence of the music stood for the violence of the breakup. It was brilliant.

Manuela said...

i can feel its power just by reading your words, prospero