Consolatio

Tao Qian: Preparing my elegy

Preparing my elegy

If there is life there must be death,
early or late there is no hurrying fate.
Yesterday evening we were people together,
today at dawn we are listed among the ghosts.
The breath of the soul-- where has it gone?
A dried-up shape is left in hollow wood.
My beloved children snivel, looking for their father,
my best friends mourn by the coffin, weeping.
Winning, losing-- I won't come back to know them.
Being, nothingness-- how can I tell them apart?
In a thousand autumns, in ten thousand years,
who will know our glory and shame?
But I do regret that during my time in this world
I did not drink all the wine I wanted.

     --Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming) (365-427)

拟挽歌辞三首

有生必有死，早終非命促。

昨暮同爲人，今旦在鬼錄。

魂氣散何之？枯形寄空木。

嬌兒索父啼，良友撫我哭。

得失不復知，是非安能覺？

千秋萬歲後，誰知榮與辱？

但恨在世時，飲酒不得足。

Netta Wilson: I lost my child today

I lost my child today
People came to weep and cry
as I just sat and stared, dry eyed
They struggled to find words to say
to try and make the pain go away
I walked the floor in disbelief
I lost my child today.

I lost my child last month
Most of the people went away
Some still call and some still stay
I wait to wake up from this dream
This can't be real, I want to scream
Yet everything is locked inside
God, help me, I want to die
I lost my child last month.

I lost my child last year
Now people who had came, have gone
I sit and struggle all day long
to bear the pain so deep inside
And now my friends just question Why?
Why does this mother not move on?
Just sits and sings the same old song
Good heavens, it has been so long
I lost my child last year.

Time has not moved on for me
The numbness it has disappeared
My eyes have now cried many tears
I see the look upon your face
"She must move on and leave this place"
Yet I am trapped right here in time
The song’s the same, as is the rhyme
I lost my child.........today

        --Netta Wilson, written in memory of her daughter Caprice Cara Wilson, who was killed in an auto accident (December 2, 1968 - November 20, 1994). Printed in the newsletter of The Compassionate Friends, Atlanta, May-June 2001

If you know how to reach Netta Wilson, please let me know. Netta Wilson wrote in herself, below. She died on September 2, 2011.

 

Antonio Machado: My father is still young

Sonnet IV

This light of Seville.. it is the palace
where I was born, with its sound of fountains.
My father, in his study. His high forehead,
his short beard, and the limp mustache.

My father, though young. He is reading, writing,
leafing through his books and thinking. He rises;
he goes toward the door to the garden. He goes through.
Sometimes he talks to himself, sometimes he sings.

His big eyes anxiously looking
now seem to wander, without a place
to rest, in the emptiness.

Now they escape from his yesterday to his tomorrow;
now they are looking through time, my father!
kindly at my gray head.

       --Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Esta luz de Sevilla... Es el palacio
donde nací, con su rumor de fuente.
Mi padre, en su despacho. La alta frente,
la breve mosca, y el bigote lacio.

Mi padre, aún joven. Lee, escribe, hojea
sus libros y medita. Se levanta;
va hacia la puerta del jardín. Pasea.
a veces habla solo, a veces canta.

Sus grandes ojos de mirar inquieto
ahora vagar parecen, sin objeto
donde puedan posar, en el vacío.

Ya escapan de su ayer a su mañana;
ya miran en el tiempo, ¡padre mío!,
piadosamente mi cabeza cana.