Dolce far niente
Heat Wave door John William Richie, 2017
Hitte
Hoog staat het stralend witte zonjuweel
En slaat zijn hete licht op ’t land te gruis,
De zilvren vlammen laaien uit ’t hemelhuis,
De barnende aarde blakert grijs en geel.
Elk buigt zijn rug onder het zware kruis
Van vlammen, een last van vuur, – het lijkt of heel
De wereld brandend draait, – de zon ziet scheel
En kookt het gulzig zweet op ’t heet fornuis.
Kon ik die zon aan bei mijn borsten drukken
En drinken van haar licht, dat ik in dagen
Van duisternis de mensen zou verrukken!
Wie dorst zijn ziel in ’t barre zonlicht dragen,
Om uit zijn hart voor andren de oogst te plukken, –
Wie dorst om zweet – wie dorst om waarheid vragen?
Adama van Scheltema (26 februari 1877 – 6 mei 1924)
Amsterdam. C. S. Adama van Scheltema werd geboren in Amsterdam
De Finse schrijver Kjell Westö werd geboren op 6 augustus 1961 in Helsinki. Zie ook alle tags voor Kjell Westö op dit blog.
Uit: The perils of being Skrak (Vertaald doorDavid McDuff)
“Through the crackling and the roaring of the waves he could hear his father take a deep breath, then Bruno said slowly: ‘Uncle Joe also writes that you’ve given up your course in company law. “The boy is a bit whimsy, he seems prone to follies,” he writes.’ Then Werner lost his temper. ‘I’m not a bit interested in company law, Dad,’ he said, ‘and I’m not a boy. I’ll be twenty-one next month and I’m going to start choosing my courses myself.’ ‘Aha,’ said Bruno, who wasn’t used to being contradicted, ‘if that’s the tone you’re going to adopt you can have your birthday here at home.’
If one has a father like Bruno, one’s father’s word is law, and Werner went home from Cleveland early, to a Helsinki that was spring-fragile and windy but no longer so war-scarred as it had been, where people were already preparing for the summer’s great party. He came home via London and Stockholm, Atlantic flights were still a novelty and Werner was scared of flying, he would rather have taken the Queen Mary from New York and then one of the North Sea ferries to Denmark or Gothenburg: it was Bruno who insisted on the outrageously expensive air tickets, he wanted to get his son home before he fell prey to more follies. And thus it was that Werner Skrake and Geoffrey Mulcahy arrived at Malm Aerodrome on the same flight, and after changing planes in Stockholm they actually sat next to each other, but without talking: the only thing that happened was that Werner grunted embarrassedly as he squeezed past Jeff Mulcahy from his window sear in order to visit the toilet.
For my grandfather Bruno the situation out there at Malm Aerodrome must have been a difficult one.
The last plane of the evening, the metal-gleaming aeroplane hulls still coloured faintly red by the dying light, spring dusk, a sky still white with a pale crescent moon hanging like a sword of Damocles over the control tower. There was to be a writing of History, and the whole of the Soft Drinks Company’s board of management was assembled to meet the prominent guest, they were dressed in black suits and well-ironed white shirts and had serious, furrowed warriors’ faces, they were a bilingual elite force that represented the very backbone of Helsinki’s post-war capitalism, they were the men who had paid off the gigantic war reparations in less than eight years. And then the Americans send a young whippersnapper in a tweed jacket and light-coloured sports shoes! And then his own boy, the rebel and renegade, comes along with the same plan, after being away since September!”
Kjell Westö (Helsinki, 6 augustus 1961)
De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Diane DiPrima werd geboren op 6 augustus 1934 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Diane DiPrima op dit blog.
Paracelsus:
Extract the juice which is itself a Light.
Pulp, manna, gentle
Theriasin, ergot
like mold on flame, these red leaves
bursting
from mesquite by the side
of dry creekbed. Extract
the tar, the sticky
substance
heart
of things
(each plant a star, extract
the juice of stars
by circular stillation
smear
the inner man w/the coction
till he burn
like worms of light in quicksilver
not the false
puffballs of marshfire, extract
the heart of the empty heart
it is full
of the star soul that paces fierce
in the deeps of earth
the Red Man,
healer
in furs
who carries a club
who carries
the pale homunculus
in his belly.
For you are angel, you call
the soul from plants
or pearls of ambergris
out of the grudging sea.
Extract arcanum. Separate
true Archeus from the false
the bitter
is not less potent—nor does clarity
bespeak truth.
Out of the heart of the ineffable
draw the black flecks of matter
& from these
the cold, blue fire.
Dry water. Immerse
yourself
though it be but a drop.
This Iliaster
flowers like the wind.
Out of the ash, the Eidolon of the world
Crystalline.
Perfect.
Diane DiPrima (New York, 6 augustus 1934)
De Engelse dichter Alfred, Lord Tennyson werd geboren op 6 augustus 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. Zie ook alle tags voor Alfred Tennyson op dit blog.
The Flower
Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.
To and fro they went
Thro’ my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.
Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o’er the wall
Stole the seed by night.
Sow’d it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
‘Splendid is the flower! ‘
Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.
And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed.
Marriage Morning
Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.
Oh, all the woods and the meadows,
Woods, where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stayed to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!
Light, so low in the vale
You flash and lighten afar,
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning star.
Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood,
Oh, lighten into my eyes and my heart,
Into my heart and my blood!
Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers.
Over the thorns and briers,
Over the meadows and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash of a million miles.
Alfred Tennyson (6 augustus 1809 – 6 oktober 1892)
Standbeeld in Trinity College, Cambridge
De Franse dichter, schrijver en diplomaat Paul Claudel werd geboren op 6 augustus 1868 in Villeneuve-sur-Fère. Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Claudel op dit blog.
Uit: La Messe là-bas
Une fois de plus l’exil, l’âme toute seule une fois de plus qui remonte à son château,
Et le premier rayon du soleil sur la corne du Corcovado !
Tant de pays derrière moi commencés sans que jamais aucune demeure s’y achève !
Mon mariage est en deçà de la mer, une femme et ces enfants que j’ai eus en rêve.
Tous ces yeux où j’ai lu un instant qu’ils me connaissaient, tous ces gens comme s’ils étaient vivants que j’ai fréquentés,
Tout cela est pareil une fois de plus à ces choses qui n’ont jamais été.
Ici je n’ai plus comme compagnie que cette augmentation de la lumière,
La montagne qui fait un fond noir éternel et ces palmiers dessinés comme sur du verre.
Et quand la Création après le jour sans heures se condense une fois de plus du néant,
Fidèle à l’immense quai chaque soir, je vais revisiter l’Océan :
La mer et ce grand campement tout autour avec un million de feux qui s’allument,
L’Amérique avec toutes ses montagnes dans le vent du soir comme des Nymphes couronnées de plumes !
L’Océan qui arrive par cette porte là-bas et qui tape contre la berge haute,
Sous le ciel chargé de pluie de toutes parts ces chandelles de cinquante pieds qui sautent !
Mon esprit n’a pas plus de repos que la mer, c’est la même douleur démente !
La même grande tache de soleil au milieu sans rien ! et cette voix qui raconte et qui se lamente !
Voici la contagion de la nuit qui gagne tout le ciel peu à peu.
Paul Claudel (6 augustus 1868 – 23 februari 1955)
Portret door Jacques-Émile Blanche, 1919
Zie voor de schrijvers van de 6e augustus ook mijn blog van 6 augustus 2017 en ook mijn blog van 6 augustus 2015 en ook mijn blog van 6 augustus 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2 en ook deel 3.