Sedulia on Grief

Georges Moustaki: Grandfathers

It's for you that I play Grandfather-- it's for you.
All the others hear me but you, you listen.
We're made of the same wood, we have the same blood,
and I carry your name and you are a little bit me.

Exiled from Corfu and Constantinople,
Ulysses who never retraced his steps,
I am from your country, a métèque like you,
a child of the child that Penelope bore you.

You were already old when I was just born,
arriving just in time to take up the relay.
And I will end up one day resembling
the photo where you posed as an ancestor.

It's for you that I play Grandfather, it's for you
that I slide my fingers along my six strings
to awaken a tranquil single-chord tune
that's all that I know to do with my ten fingers.

Master of laziness, expert at poaching,
like you I have lived in the shadow of boats
and to make a feast I would steal birds
that the sea wind brought me from the deep

Like you I ran after girls and dreams
drinking at each stream I crossed
and without ever really quenching my thirst
without ever tiring of sowing my seed.

It's for you that I play Grandfather, it's for you.
To put back in the present all that has passed
since I began to speak only French
and I write songs you don't understand

It's for you I play Grandfather, it's for you.
All the others surround me but you wait for me
even though you are far off in space and in time
when it's time to die we'll find each other again.

      --Georges Moustaki (1934- ), written in 1969. He was born to Greek Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, and became a famous singer in French.

C'est pour toi que je joue Grandpère c'est pour toi
Tous les autres m'écoutent mais toi tu m'entends
On est du même bois on est du même sang
Et je porte ton nom et tu es un peu moi

Exilé de Corfou et de Constantinople
Ulysse qui jamais ne revint sur ses pas
Je suis de ton pays, métèque comme toi
Un enfant de l'enfant que te fit Pénélope

Tu étais déjà vieux quand je venais de naître
Arrivé juste à temps pour prendre le relais
Et je finirai bien un jour par ressembler
A la photo où tu as posé à l'ancêtre

C'est pour toi que je joue Grand-père c'est pour toi
Que je glisse mes doigts le long de mes six cordes
Pour réveiller un air tranquille et monocorde
C'est tout ce que je sais faire de mes dix doigts

Maître en oisiveté expert en braconnage
Comme toi j'ai vécu à l'ombre des bateaux
Et pour faire un festin je volais les oiseaux
Que le vent de la mer me ramenait du large

Comme toi j'ai couru les filles et les rêves
Buvant à chaque source que je rencontrais
Et sans être jamais vraiment désaltéré
Sans jamais être las de répandre ma sève

C'est pour toi que je joue Grand-père c'est pour toi
Pour remettre au présent tout ce qui est passé
Depuis que je ne parle plus que le français
Et j'écris des chansons que tu ne comprends pas

C'est pour toi que je joue Grand-père c'est pour toi
Tous les autres m'entourent mais toi tu m'attends
Même si tu es loin dans l'espace et le temps
Quand il faudra mourir on se retrouvera.

Yeats: Everything alters

I heard the old, old men say,

"Everything alters,

and one by one we drop away."

They had hands like claws, and their knees

were twisted like the old thorn trees

by the waters.

I heard the old, old men say,

"All that's beautiful drifts away

like the waters."

 

       --William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), In the Seven Woods (1903)

To everything there is a season

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life....That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past....

       --Ecclesiastes 3, The Bible

Emerson: Earth endures, stars abide

Hear what the Earth says:—

Earth-Song

"Mine and yours;
  Mine, not yours.
  Earth endures;
  Stars abide—
  Shine down in the old sea;
  Old are the shores;
  But where are old men?
  I who have seen much,
  Such have I never seen.

"The lawyer's deed
  Ran sure,
  In tail,
  To them, and to their heirs
  Who shall succeed,
  Without fail,
  Forevermore.

"Here is the land,
  Shaggy with wood,
  With its old valley,
  Mound and flood.
  But the heritors?—

"Fled like the flood's foam.
  The lawyer, and the laws,
  And the kingdom,
  Clean swept herefrom.

"They called me theirs,
  Who so controlled me;
  Yet every one
  Wished to stay, and is gone,
  How am I theirs,
  If they cannot hold me,
  But I hold them?"

When I heard the Earth-song
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.

   --From "Hamatreya," by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

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。

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.

Friedrich Rückert: You don't want the wounds to heal

Over all graves the grass grows at last,
time heals all wounds, that is a consolation,
certainly the worst that one can give you;
poor heart, you don't want the wounds to heal.
You still have something, as long as it painfully burns;
only what hurts no longer is dead and cut off.

     --Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)

Über alle Gräber wächst zuletzt das Gras,
Alle Wunden heilt die Zeit, ein Trost ist das,
Wohl der schlechteste, den man dir kann erteilen;
Armes Herz, du willst nicht, dass die Wunden heilen.
Etwas hast du noch, solang es schmerzlich brennt;
Das Verschmerzte nur ist tot und abgetrennt.

Crowfoot: Life is the flash of a firefly in the night

What is life? 
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

   --Attributed to Crowfoot (ca 1830-1890), chief of the Canadian Blackfoot tribe.

If you know the source of the quote, please let me know.

Buddha: A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

            --Gautama Buddha

If anyone knows the translator and source of this quotation, please email me.

It seems to be from: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche; “The Last Teaching of the Buddha,” in The Teaching of the Buddha, 128th revised edition (Tokyo: Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, 1986)

Thomas Hood: It is not death

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
this eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;    
that sometime these bright stars, that now reply    
in sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;    
that this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,          
and all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;    
that thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite    
be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below;    
it is not death to know this—but to know    
that pious thoughts, which visit at new graves    
in tender pilgrimage, will cease to go    
so duly and so oft—and when grass waves    
over the pass'd-away, there may be then    
no resurrection in the minds of men.

   --Thomas Hood (1799-1845)