Fishing on the Moon: A Meditation

I tilt my head to square my helmet’s aperture;
and watch my line reeling through the dust,
the day’s black sky, and the near-felt sun

light; breathing on the sea-side of the moon,
I am the world, and the only sound
huddles within my inch of atmosphere.

Ah. . . . . . . . . . . .

fishing on the moon

is thrilling. The only cell -- moving
in an ocean, egotistical and esoteric,
incomprehensible and incomparable to
the (much biggest) mindless else
which is as measurably identical
without or with it -- has heavy breath.

I feel my gloves move and watch the line
skidding through dust, eons undisrupted,
now disrupted in new and equal still;
the hook locks at the top of my pole
untouchable; and I smile (hearing my cheeks fold).
Nothing’s ever caught on the moon anyhow.

I cast again (feeling the my back’s muscles,
my arms and pole out of vision, breathing
the only sound in my, only atmosphere)
into the sea of tranquility and the hook -- baitless,
unseen but indicated by the pole (now in vision,
bending) and the string, stretching….into the sky --

rises and falls….slowly

into dust that

rises and falls….slowly.

Qui Amat, Uritur

Nescio quid sit amor: nec amo, nec amor, nec amavi,
Sed scio, si quis amat, uritur igne gravi.

---

I know not love: nor if I love, nor have, nor will,
But she who loves, I know, is burned by ardent flame.

SONETO XXXVIII

"Sonnet 38" ~Garcilaso de la Vega

Estoy continuo en lágrimas bañado, rompiendo el aire siempre con sospiros; y más me duele el no osar deciros que he llegado por vos a tal estado; que viéndome do estoy, y lo que he andado por el camino estrecho de seguiros, si me quiero tornar para huiros, desmayo, viendo atrás lo que he dejado; y si quiero subir a la alta cumbre, a cada paso espántanme en la vía, ejemplos tristes de los que han caído. sobre todo, me falta ya la lumbre de la esperanza, con que andar solía por la oscura región de vuestro olvido.

Continue bathing I myself in tears, breaking air e'er with breathing you; it hurts me more not daring speak to you than fact that I by you have come to here; than seeing where I am; than wanting steer, down the narrow way that follows you, which if upon I try escaping you, dismayèd am, what seeing had I ere; and though I try to reach the peakèd height, at every pass does scare me on the way sad displays of what and where has fallen. above it all, mistake I yet the light of hope, with where I'm used to wanton stray: through obscure realms of your oblivion.

Image: Heavenly Galaxies; (not mine)

Wrong Index, Finger!

I am the many hands man
Fingers everywhere
Turning and turning
All screws up
I am the many hands man
All just as down

SONETO XXXVII

"Sonnet 37" ~Garcilaso de la Vega

A la entrada de un valle, en un desierto, do nadie atravesaba, ni se vía, vi que con extrañeza un can hacía extremos de dolor con desconcierto; agora suelta el llanto al cielo abierto, ora va rastreando por la vía; camina, vuelve, para, y todavía quedaba desmayado como muerto. Y fue que se apartó de su presencia su amo, y no le hallaba; y esto siente; mirad hasta do llega el mal de ausencia. Movióme a compasión ver su accidente; díjele, lastimado: «Ten paciencia, que yo alcanzo razón, y estoy ausente».

At the entrance of the valley, in a desert, where nobody has crossed, nor any go, I saw estrangéd there a hound who throes unto the ends of pain in disconcert; how he looses to the sky his hurt, how he goes, him listing down the road; he walks, turns, stops, and ever lows, remaining dismayed as death and dirt. And, it seems, has parted from his presence his guide; was she not found, and he laments; behold of he who is the ill of absence. Me to pity moved his accident, and agonized, said I to him : "Have patience: reason I achieved, though am absent."

SONETO XXXVI

"Sonnet 35" ~Garcilaso de la Vega

Siento el dolor menguarme poco a poco, no porque ser le sienta más sencillo, más fallece el sentir para sentillo, después que de sentillo estoy tan loco. Ni en sello pienso que en locura toco, antes voy tan ufano con oíllo, que no dejaré el sello y el sufrillo, que si dejo de sello, el seso apoco. Todo me empece, el seso y la locura; prívame éste de sí por ser tan mío; mátame estotra por ser yo tan suyo. Parecerá a la gente desvarío preciarme de este mal, do me destruyo: y lo tengo por única ventura.

Little by little subsides the pain I've had, though not because is easier the feeling, more perishes the feeling by it feeling and after oft it feeling am I mad. Not having it methinks myself all mad, ere forthwith it been my pride appealing, I won't abandon being and it dealing, for if not being, lows my mind all bad. All began myself: the mind, the mad; the first as mine denies me of itself, the other me kills I being such its own. And may it well appear to many selves I pride myself this bad, myself which groans: what I merely by a chance have had.

SONETO XXXV

"Sonnet 34" ~Garcilaso del la Vega

Mario, el ingrato amor, como testigo de mi fe pura y de mi gran firmeza, usando en mí su vil naturaleza, que es hacer más ofensa al más amigo; teniendo miedo que si escribo o digo su condición, abato su grandeza; no bastando su fuerza a mi crüeza ha esforzado la mano a mi enemigo. Y ansí, en la parte que la diestra mano gobierna. y en aquella que declara los conceptos del alma, fui herido. Mas yo haré que aquesta ofensa cara le cueste al ofensor, ya que estoy sano, libre, desesperado y ofendido.

Mario, ungrateful love commends my purest faith and truest loyalty, me viled by its naturality, which seems the more offend the more the friend, Fearing if that e'er I spoke or penned your bent, I'd lessen its enormity; not matching near thy strength my villainy so strengthen would my hand thy condescend. And thus, by hand more skilled, in certain sense, am I now governed. And by what doth spell my soul's conceits, my wound has been appended. But will I make that costly dared offense to cost offender dear, for yet am well, independent, desp'rate and offended.

Image: Abstract Artwork of a Angry Man Holding His Head; Paul Brown

SONETO XXXIV

"Sonnet 34" ~Garcilaso de la Vega

Gracias al cielo doy que ya del cuello del todo el grave yugo ha desasido, y que del viento el mar embravecido veré desde lo alto sin temello; veré colgada de un sutil cabello la vida del amante embebecido en su error, en engaño adormecido, sordo a las voces que le avisan dello. Alegrárame el mal de los mortales, y yo en aquesto no tan inhumano seré contra mi ser cuanto parece: alegraréme, como hace el sano, no de ver a los otros en los males, sino de ver que dellos él carece.

Thanks I give that heaven from the neck of all humanity the yoke has pulled, and of the wind that e'er the sea has mulled, fearless, I will see its strength uncheck; And I will see on thin strand hung too beck the life of the entrancèd lover, culled alone in error, fraudulently lulled, and deaf to any voice that warns of wreck. Will cheer me now our mortal wickedness, and I in this be not as inhumane nor 'gainst my self as hearing may aback: I will be cheered, as made more well and sane, not by seeing others in their less but by seeing they in bad do lack.

Image: Purifying Hope; Mark Lawrence

SONETO XXXIII

"Sonnet 33" ~Garcilaso de la Vega

Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte, que con su propria fuerza el africano suelo regando, hacen que el romano imperio reverdezca en esta parte, han reducido a la memoria del arte y el antiguo valor italïano, por cuya fuerza y valerosa mano África se aterró de parte a parte. Aquí donde el romano encendimiento, donde el fuego y la llama licenciosa sólo el nombre dejaron a Cartago, vuelve y revuelve amor mi pensamiento, hiere y enciende el alma temerosa, y en llanto y en ceniza me deshago.

Boscan, the furied Mars's sword and dart, that with their suited force the African soil scattered, that the ebbed Roman empire may rekindled have in part; have they become the memory of art, and too the antique honor Italian, by whose own hand and power valiant lost terrified all Africa its heart. Here where once the Roman fire fought, where once the blazed, licentious flame that left of mighty Carthage but the name, turning and returning love to thought, burning and aggrieving a frightened soul, into tears and ash dissolve I whole.

Image: The Course of Empire Destruction; Thomas Cole

SONETO XXXII

"Sonnet 32" ~Garcilaso de la Vega

Mi lengua va por do el dolor la guía; ya yo con mi dolor sin guía camino; entrambos hemos de ir, con puro tino; cada uno a parar do no querría; yo, porque voy sin otra compañía, sino la que me hace el desatino, ella, porque la lleve aquel que vino a hacerla decir más que querría. Y es para mí la ley tan desigual, que aunque inocencia siempre en mí conoce, siempre yo pago el yerro ajeno y mío. ¿Qué culpa tengo yo del desvarío de mi lengua, si estoy en tanto mal, que el sufrimiento ya me desconoce?

My tongue is guided where my pain may rove; so often with it wend I guidelessly; us both must go most pure and tactfully; each stopping ere where either or would love; I, because companion none thereof but this which makes its hurt on me, it, because it might I bear what be it made to say what more than or us love. And is the law but inequality: though innocence e'er me within be known, I pay for error stranger to mine own. What blame have I for incoherency of my rave tongue, if I am such in lies that not my suff'ring can I recognize?

Image: Lost in the Mist 2, Rusudan Khizanishvili