De Amerikaanse dichter Gary Joseph Whitehead werd geboren op 23 maart 1965 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Zie alle tags voor Gary Whitehead op dit blog.
The Compass of Small Tongues
At the feast of dragonflies the sunlight, invited first,
bursts out of a grin the pond water makes when water-
snakes come up for air. They could be turtles surfacing,
their little yellow eyes breaking out of black skin
like seeds. But they are snakes, two of them, and they ride
side by side, sister ships, into the one dimension—
shimmering, yes, as though afraid—the two of us paint
on the still pond. Mystery and wonder, they break us
into light and ripples; into damsel and widow skimmer;
into dust falling on water; into mayflies who,
living just a day, learn nothing of love or what it means
to live as a winged thing, or to consume food
in the open air. And the pond grins wider—the maker—
till the parts of ourselves we thought we knew turn to grass
on the other side. But we have known each other
longer, and will survive this summer as we have
all these seasons, these days, these snakes that break us.
Let the mayflies lift off by the thousands, hatching
dreams of being. Let the damselfly be a dragon
in the fantasy that this pond won’t drain when weeks
go by without rain. Only in the drought of us
do we know where the snakes go when they dive deep.
We see the dried mud, the boredom of weeds; we smell
the stench of dead nymphs. But who can say where snakes go
when water is high and they plunge, as they do now,
again, because we are here together, or why, when
the surface stills and the dragonflies forget their wings
for a moment, we take shape long enough to see ourselves
in the water, mysterious and wondrous, before we sink
into the particular creatures we are, and move on?
Gary Whitehead (Pawtucket, 23 maart 1965)
De Japanse schrijfster Yōko Tawada werd geboren op 23 maart 1960 in Tokyo. Zie alle tags voor Yōko Tawada op dit blog.
Die Orangerie
1
Woher kenne ich diese Farbe?
An einem Dezembertag
Nach einer Reise durch Südostasien
Als ich wieder nach Hamburg kam
Vor meinem Fenster
Die Straße, eine durch Schnee korrigierte Linie
Die lange Nacht kam mit pfeifenden Schiffen
Und dann sah ich
Den Müllwagen
Mit drei Männern auf dem Rücken
Ihre Uniform hatte genau die gleiche Farbe
Wie das Mönchsgewand in Thailand
Das Orange, das das Wort im Schatten wachruft
Die Schale einer Frucht
Die nicht geschält werden will
Das Innere enthält kein Licht
Bleib’ ungeschält!
Deine Schale ist Obst wert
Dagegen die Stücke einer Orange
Bloße Gerüchte von Vitamin C
Ein saures Bereuen
Die Orangenschale
Strahlt in der Farbe der Betenden,
Die uns im Morgennebel besuchen
Um Almosen abzuholen
Wir drücken die weiche Stirn gegen die Erde
Bis ihr Gebet endet
Bis der Müllwagen davonfährt
Ein Motor ahmt das Gebet nach
Der Müllbeutel ist ein Geschenk für die Heiligen
Greift man tief in den Beutel
Erhellt sich die Hügellandschaft im Traum
Man wirft den Beutel ins Loch des Müllwagens
Das Beste werfen wir immer in den Müll
Verpackungspapier einer Seife
Rote Wurzeln von grünem Spinat
Verschimmelte Manuskripte
Oder alte Schuhe, die schon zu viele Wege kennen
Die orangenfarbenen Männer holen den Beutel ab
Der Beutel, das Hotel
Für altes Porzellan oder totes Gerät
Der Beutel, die junge Schachtel, der Sarg für das neue Leben
Ein Geschenk der Industrie
Yōko Tawada (Tokyo, 23 maart 1960)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Mitch Cullin werd geboren op 23 maart 1968 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Zie alle tags voor Mitch Cullin op dit blog.
Uit: Tideland
„The bus door was ajar, an inauspicious entryway. Peering within, I spotted the melted steering wheel, the upholstery on the driver’s seat bursting fuzz and springs. A smoky scent filled my nostrils, bubbled plastic and corrosion. And even though I was eleven, I had never been in a school bus. I had never been to school. So I squeezed past the inverted door, glancing at the stairwell overhead, and delighted in the glass chunks crunching beneath my sneakers.
Looking through the topsy-turvy windows, I shook a hand at the Johnsongrass outside, pretending they were my parents waving from a sidewalk somewhere. Then I put myself below a seat in the rear, imagining a busload of fresh-faced kids filling the other charred seats, all smiles and chatter, smacking gum, spinning paper airplanes down the aisle, and I was leaving with them.
From where I sat, the second floor of the farmhouse was visible, jutting behind the high Johnsongrass. The upstairs lamp was on, glowing in the third gable’s window. At dusk, the old place no longer appeared weathered and gray, but brownish and almost golden—the eaves of the corrugated steel lean-to reflected sunlight, the thumbnail moon hung alongside the chimney.
And soon the grazing pasture erupted in places with bright soft intermittent flashes, a lemon phosphorescence. The fireflies had arrived, just as my father said they would, and I watched them with my dry lips parted in wonder, my palms sliding expectantly on the lap of my dress. I felt like running from the bus and greeting them, but they joined me instead. Dozens of tiny blinks materialized, floating through the smashed windows, illuminating the grim bus.“
Mitch Cullin (Santa Fe, 23 maart 1968)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Steven Saylor werd geboren op 23 maart 1956 in Port Lavaca Texas. Zie alle tags voor Steven Saylor op dit blog..
Uit: Roman Blood
„The journey from my house on the Esquiline Hill to that of Cicero, close by the Capitoline, would take more than an hour of steady walking. It had probably taken Tiro half that time to reach my door, but Tiro had set out at dawn. We left at the busiest hour of the morning, when the streets of Rome are flooded with humanity, all stirred into wakefulness by the perpetual engines of hunger, obedience, and greed.
One sees more household slaves on the streets at that hour than at any other time of day. They scurry about the city on a million morning errands, conveying messages, carrying packages, fetching sundries, shipping from market to market. They carry with them the heavy scent of bread, baked fresh in a thousand stone ovens around the city, each oven sending up its slender tendril of smoke like a daily offering to the gods. They carry the scent of fish, freshwater varieties captured nearby in the Tiber, or else more exotic species transported overnight upriver from the port at Ostia – mud-caked mollusks and great fish of the sea, slithering octopi and squid. They carry the scent of blood that oozes from the severed limbs and breasts and carefully extracted organs of cattle, chicken, pigs, and sheep, wrapped in cloth and slung over their shoulder, destined for their masters’ tables and their masters’ already bloated bellies.
No other city I know can match the sheer vitality of Rome at the hour just before midmorning. Rome wakes with a self-satisfied stretching of the limbs and a deep inhalation, stimulating the lungs, quickening the pulse. Rome wakes with a smile, roused from pleasant dreams, for every night Rome goes to sleep dreaming a dream of empire. In the morning Rome opens her eyes, ready to go about the business of making that dream come true in broad daylight. Other cities cling to sleep – Alexandria and Athens to warm dreams of the past, Pergamum and Antioch to a coverlet of Oriental splendor, little Pompeii and Herculaneum to the luxury of napping till noon. Rome has work to do. Rome is an early riser.“
Steven Saylor (Port Lavaca, 23 maart 1956)
De Samische dichter, schilder, musicus en fotograaf Nils-Aslak Valkeapääwerd geboren op 23 maart 1943 in Palonjoensuu nabij Enontekiö. Zie alle tags voor Nils-Aslak Valkeapää op dit blog.
… wir haben hier gelebt
von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht
die Sonne ist gestiegen, gesunken
hat Leben gegeben
aber wenn
sie
kommen,
finden sie dieses Land, uns
und wir sind Steine, Gewächse, Tiere, Fische
Wasser, Wind, Erde, Himmel
und sie gehen durch uns hindurch
ohne zu sehen…
Uit: Trekways of the Winds
He grew up alone
he liked birds
the first spot thawed bare in spring
delighted him
He learned to be alone
to play his own games
real games
For hours he waited for trout
Time was different
Each day as long as itself
not one like the other
He learned to imitate birds
Scream like a rough-legged buzzard
and a plover
For him that was not unusual
Nils-Aslak Valkeapää(23 maart 1943 – 26 november 2001)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 23e maart ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.