[Image: “Spirit of the Demon,” poster by Edward J. Moran for the Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle. (Found on DeviantArt.) The film — and other films from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki — rewards the viewer approximately in proportion to how little one thinks about what one is seeing.]
From whiskey river:
Such Silence
As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.
(Mary Oliver [source])
…and:
A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives — all bear secret relations to our destinies.
(François-René de Chateaubriand [source, in slightly different wording])
…and:
’til soon
Even you, raw matter,
even you, lumber, mass and muscle,
vodka, liver and chuckle,
candlelight, paper, coal and cloud,
stone, avocado meat, falling rain,
nail, mountain, hot-press iron,
even you feel saudade,
first-degree burn,
a longing to return home?Clay, sponge, marble, rubber,
cement, steel, glass, vapor, cloth and cartilage,
paint, ash, eggshell, grain of sand,
first day of autumn, the word spring,
number five, the slap in the face, a rich rhyme,
a new life, middle age, old strength,
even you, matter my dear,
remember when we were only a mere idea?
(Paulo Leminski, translated by Elisa Wouk Almino [source])
