Perché di questo è fatta la vita,

Se io potessi vivere nuovamente la mia vita
nella prossima cercherei di commettere più errori.
Non tenterei di essere tanto perfetto, mi rilasserei di più
sarei più stolto di quello che sono stato,
in verità prenderei poche cose sul serio.
Correrei più rischi, viaggerei di più, scalerei più montagne,
contemplerei più tramonti e attraverserei più fiumi,
andrei in posti dove mai sono stato,
avrei più problemi reali e meno problemi immaginari.
Io sono stato una di quelle persone che vivono sensatamente,
producendo ogni minuto della vita.
E’ chiaro che ho avuto momenti di allegria,
ma se tornassi a vivere, cercherei di avere soltanto momenti buoni.
Perché di questo è fatta la vita,
solo di momenti da non perdere.
Io ero una di quelle persone che mai andavano da qualche
parte senza un termometro, una borsa d’acqua calda, un ombrello e un paracadute:
se tornassi a vivere, viaggerei più leggero.
Se io potessi tornare a vivere, comincerei ad andare scalzo
all’inizio della primavera
e continuerei così fino alla fine dell’autunno.
Girerei più volte nella mia strada, contemplerei più aurore
e giocherei di più con i bambini.
Se avessi un’altra volta la vita davanti...
Ma, vedete, ho ottantacinque anni e non ho un’altra possibilità.

Jorge Luis Borges

Thai chi

Now I am going to practice Thai chi with Prof. K.S. Walgama, a Sri Lankan Thai chi Master.
He is a great teacher. I am loving Thai chi. Getting use to slow warld even in Kandy city in Sri Lanka.

Self-portrait

I am nothing else
but a blood stain
that speaks.

(Nichita Stanescu)

The right to time

You have a kind of paradise, all yours
where no words are uttered.
Sometimes it moves from one arm
and leafs fall in front of you.
With the oval of the face one bends
towards a light coming from one side
with much yellow in it and much laziness,
with a boost for jumpers in death.
You have your own serene way
of raising cities like clouds
and of incessantly moving seconds
on the South side of the hour,
when the air becomes violet and cold
and the map of time has no edges,
and I can barely stay alive
still breathing, with long eyes, images.

(Nichita Stanescu)

Sign 12

Serena reminded me about Nichita Stanescu, and because I think Nichita is so great, and so few of his poems are translated in English, I will translate some of my favorite poems, trying to keep close to the sense and partially the rhythm.

Sign 12
She was slowly becoming word,
clusters of wind soul,
dolphin in the claws of my eyebrows,
stone raising water into circles,
star inside my knee,
sky inside my shoulder,
me inside me.

(Nichita Stanescu)

thanks to Amalia, i discovered a great poet!

Nichita Stanescu

Unwords
He held out a leaf towards me as if a fingered hand.
I held out a hand towards him as if a crenate leaf.
He reached out a limb like an arm towards me.
I reached out an arm like a limb towards him.
He bowed his trunk towards me
just like a shoulder.
I bowed my shoulder towards him
just like a knotly trunk.
I heard intensified his sap throbbing
like blood.
I heard slackened my blood rising like sap.
I walked through him.
He walked through me.
I’ve been lonely a tree ever since.
He’s been
lonely a man.

last time I saw light

fluture, yugen

Un fluturuzzo nella mia stanza,

si posa un su un tessuto colorato,

si posa sul mio libro,

saluta la rosa nel balcone, poi va,

la meraviglia di una breve visita inaspettata.

Child, yugen

This child, in a park in Lugano. He just stopped in front of me, his look in the opposite direction, watching something. Attentive, he did not move, completely absorbed. His mother was calling him to go, he seemed he did not hear. He remained completely still for one minut.
Then suddenly he moved and ran towards his mother, shouting her name.

un fiore rosso

Solo il rapido muoversi di piccoli esseri tra le foglie,
nel procedere silenzioso verso la cima,
un fiore rosso sul nostro cammino.

Fiori di ciliegio

Cadono i fiori di ciliegio
sugli specchi d'acqua della risaia:
stelle, al chiarore di una notte senza luna.

way back to perfection

This is the story about a man that was looking for perfection.
He loved shapes, perfect shapes. He loved the way colours came together in shapes and how shapes of different colours paralleled themselves in perfect synchronies. He loved sounds and loved the way sounds came together in perfect strings of notes. He loved, most of all, the aspiration towards perfection of imperfect beings such as himself.
He loved birds as he thought that birds are perfect creatures. Spotless body, spotless cover of feathers for the body. Most of all birds were living perfect creatures, a proof that nature could create perfect creatures without killing them in motionless colour-shape continuums.
Children were also perfect beings into his eyes. Thus children raised the first big existential question into the man that was looking for perfection. Can perfection grow into imperfection? His logic identified, out of this question, the truth that perfection was rather a way back than a way forward. However, his logic could not answer the question that naturally arose: what is the way back to perfection?

Tramonto all'Avana

E' un impero
quella luce che muore
o una lucciola?

(Borges)

..window to the world

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.

From within, I couldn't decide what to do.

Unable to see, I heard my name being called.

Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

(Rumi)

Rumi, love, lovers

In love...nothing is eternal, but drinking your wine.
There is no reason for bringing my life to you,
other than losing it. I said, I just want to know you,
and then disappear. She said, knowing me does not mean dying.
(Rumi)

..haiku

They spoke no word.

The visitor, the host,

And the white chrysanthemum.

(Ryota)