I want to thank you all, for reading, sharing, offering pieces of yourselves and such affirming, insightful presences; the joy you bring to me is a challenge to express adequaterly, so I'll just say I am grateful for each of you.
We just returned from a walk and watching the granddog bound over trees and streams, and our grandkids sing to us in a video chat. Our youngest son and daughter in law playing a game across the room, I took a little time to write this.
I don’t have many childhood memories of truly playing (I was more of a reader) but I do have vivid and happy memories of playing in the snow with my little brother, my only companion in the small, prairie village where we lived. Thank you for prompting these recollections, written down rather quickly as they popped into my mind.
Outside,
on this bright morning,
the world is cold and fresh and white,
beckoning us to carve from the towering snow banks
I took today in an unusual direction, because I've been reading the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), and wanted to try my hand at translating some of them. Conveniently, one of the poems is called "You Play Every Day," so I decided it was as good as any to start with today :) It's a striking poem of love and angst coexisting (Neruda was 20 when this book came out in 1924) and I wanted to do justice to the simple, surprising language.
YOU PLAY EVERY DAY - by Pablo Neruda, translated by me
You play every day with the universe’s light.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower, in the water.
You’re more than this little white head I clutch
like a cluster of grapes in my hands each day.
You’re like no one since I love you.
Let me spread you among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in smoke among the southern stars?
Oh, let me remember you as you were then,
back when you didn’t exist.
Suddenly wind howls and beats my closed window.
The sky is a net congealed with shadowy fish.
All the winds hit here, all of them.
The rain undresses.
The birds pass in flight.
The wind. The wind.
I can fight only the power of men.
The tempest swirls dark leaves
and turns loose the ships, which moored last night in heaven.
***and, for the curious and bilingual, the Spanish original:
Juegas todo los días
Juegas todos los días con la luz del universo.
Sutil visitadora, llegas en la flor y en el agua.
Eres más que esta blanca cabecita que aprieto
como un racimo entre mis manos cada día.
A nadie te pareces desde que yo te amo.
Déjame tenderte entre guirnaldas amarillas.
Quién escribe tu nombre con letras de humo entre las estrellas del sur?
Ah déjame recordarte cómo eras entonces, cuando aún no existías.
De pronto el viento aúlla y golpea mi ventana cerrada.
El cielo es una red cuajada de peces sombríos.
Aquí vienen a dar todos los vientos, todos.
Se desviste la lluvia.
Pasan huyendo los pájaros.
El viento. El viento.
Yo sólo puedo luchar contra la fuerza de los hombres.
El temporal arremolina hojas oscuras
y suelta toda las barcas que anoche amarraron al cielo.
After the hectic nature of Christmas my husband had the sense to bring in some calmness and so he scheduled us to go whale watching. I was very reluctant to go but afterwards I couldn’t thank him enough. We didn’t see whales but we had the pleasure of seeing several pods of Common dolphins. They were poetry in the water.
Light + Play
A flicker of muted sunlight caught their sleek bodies traveling through the water.
Where are they heading to? Is it movement for pleasure or a swim towards their next meal?
A twitch of a tail no bigger than my shoe propels the little one out and up to the sunlight.
Swoosh! Swoof! Gasp! Exhalation?Inhalation?
Then a perfect arc downwards to the cold dark ocean that envelops this dance of light and play.
I want to thank you all, for reading, sharing, offering pieces of yourselves and such affirming, insightful presences; the joy you bring to me is a challenge to express adequaterly, so I'll just say I am grateful for each of you.
We just returned from a walk and watching the granddog bound over trees and streams, and our grandkids sing to us in a video chat. Our youngest son and daughter in law playing a game across the room, I took a little time to write this.
Play
We often try to put you in a box,
layering a rigid, dour grimness
over everything you do and say,
forcing order and obedience,
treating them as Gods.
I wonder about this:
All the times you danced and sang,
howled from the belly
with friends around a table,
made fun of the high religious
and power brokers,
smiled at a child lost in the game.
Primal scream, luscious laughter,
Drips of desire, dreams of joy.
When do we let you, wisdom teacher,
Just go out and play?
Per your assignment, Katilin, I chose to play Yahtzee with my husband, then my husband and mother-in-law.
"B-Nine!" the neighbor calls out.
"G-Two", then "O-Seven"
A bingo game amongst beloveds
Bellowing hurray, and willing the winning combination of letters, numbers
They shout and laugh: an intergenerational gathering
December 25 brings winds and the rain comes through the lanai
Onto our Yahtzee game and the couch.
How novel to be out of doors, of sorts, barefoot, but sweatered
Surrounded by coconut palms, saw palmetto, senior citizens
A full house, 3 of a kind, we compete with our cries of 'Yahtzee'
Who cares who wins? Being here is a blessing.
B-here! I-pray N-joying my day G-whiz! O-boy
My hands play
over threads,
create dancing shadows
in the slanting
golden light on the wall,
reach for the handle
of a well loved mug,
rest on the soft skin
of my peacefully empty,
satisfyingly full, belly.
A day of rest.
I don’t have many childhood memories of truly playing (I was more of a reader) but I do have vivid and happy memories of playing in the snow with my little brother, my only companion in the small, prairie village where we lived. Thank you for prompting these recollections, written down rather quickly as they popped into my mind.
Outside,
on this bright morning,
the world is cold and fresh and white,
beckoning us to carve from the towering snow banks
a fort from which to defend our kingdom.
Wearing our many layers
to protect us from frost-bite,
we roll the snow into oblong shapes,
oblivious to time and temperature.
Now we are done.
Now it is dark.
Now we reluctantly retreat indoors.
Tomorrow there will be fresh snow.
We’ll get up early so we can dig out our fort.
Perhaps I never
Learned (or was never taught?) how to play
Alongside the work, the worry, the busyness, there is still a
Yearning - is it too late?
I took today in an unusual direction, because I've been reading the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), and wanted to try my hand at translating some of them. Conveniently, one of the poems is called "You Play Every Day," so I decided it was as good as any to start with today :) It's a striking poem of love and angst coexisting (Neruda was 20 when this book came out in 1924) and I wanted to do justice to the simple, surprising language.
YOU PLAY EVERY DAY - by Pablo Neruda, translated by me
You play every day with the universe’s light.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower, in the water.
You’re more than this little white head I clutch
like a cluster of grapes in my hands each day.
You’re like no one since I love you.
Let me spread you among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in smoke among the southern stars?
Oh, let me remember you as you were then,
back when you didn’t exist.
Suddenly wind howls and beats my closed window.
The sky is a net congealed with shadowy fish.
All the winds hit here, all of them.
The rain undresses.
The birds pass in flight.
The wind. The wind.
I can fight only the power of men.
The tempest swirls dark leaves
and turns loose the ships, which moored last night in heaven.
***and, for the curious and bilingual, the Spanish original:
Juegas todo los días
Juegas todos los días con la luz del universo.
Sutil visitadora, llegas en la flor y en el agua.
Eres más que esta blanca cabecita que aprieto
como un racimo entre mis manos cada día.
A nadie te pareces desde que yo te amo.
Déjame tenderte entre guirnaldas amarillas.
Quién escribe tu nombre con letras de humo entre las estrellas del sur?
Ah déjame recordarte cómo eras entonces, cuando aún no existías.
De pronto el viento aúlla y golpea mi ventana cerrada.
El cielo es una red cuajada de peces sombríos.
Aquí vienen a dar todos los vientos, todos.
Se desviste la lluvia.
Pasan huyendo los pájaros.
El viento. El viento.
Yo sólo puedo luchar contra la fuerza de los hombres.
El temporal arremolina hojas oscuras
y suelta toda las barcas que anoche amarraron al cielo.
I'm going to be so sad when these lovely prompts end! Here's my poem for today.
The universe is playing with me.
Splashing my super secret
password across the fronts of shirts,
putting magnets in my hand
and in the one book
in the whole damn store
that says the thing I’m saying in my head,
so I grab that one—only that one.
I write words I’ve never heard
in my journal and
the next day they fall from your lips
like an oak leaf
just when I am thinking of oak trees.
And don’t get me started on eagles
and how they keep finding me, or
I keep finding them.
Yuk it up, dear world!
Have your fun!
Two can play at this game.
I wrote two today, one that went to a deeper place and one that was much lighter.
Play reflections
When I think of play
and poems
my head fills with songs and rhymes
of raindrops and gum drops
and marshmallow things
of snow drops--then tear drops
and soft, hollow things
Times are hard and getting harder
my
heart
drops.
In the magic window
I hold in my hand
A million feelings play
I watch them as I greet the day
I long for the joy
of reckless abandon
Sun on my face
wind in my hair
Worries gone and laughter
in their place
That is the way my spirit
plays
Second one: child's play
Squealing delight
Eyes wide open then shut tight
Breathless bubbling laughter
When you have a toddler
to look after
a half note haiku
all that woodshedding
just to play some jazz trumpet
like no 'shed done. Cool.
MY CHRISTMAS DAY WALK…
Within the quiet stillness of the air,
holiday activities whirl and play around me.
Seems the whole neighborhood is out and about,
for each step I take a new adventure unfolds.
Like the three boys engrossed in a treasure hunt,
with a new metal detector searching for unknown riches.
Cries of glee as a point gets scored during a nearby
pickleball game being played on their driveway.
Kids on bicycles whirling by with nowhere
to go, but somehow always arriving.
Young tots buzzing along in their motor car,
parents following not too far behind.
Guests arriving loaded with food and packages,
for some parties are only now commencing.
And with each pile of leaves my feet come across
I scuffle through them like I did as a kid.
Their crackling sound music to my ears
like all the laughter I’ve heard along the way.
Light + Play
After the hectic nature of Christmas my husband had the sense to bring in some calmness and so he scheduled us to go whale watching. I was very reluctant to go but afterwards I couldn’t thank him enough. We didn’t see whales but we had the pleasure of seeing several pods of Common dolphins. They were poetry in the water.
Light + Play
A flicker of muted sunlight caught their sleek bodies traveling through the water.
Where are they heading to? Is it movement for pleasure or a swim towards their next meal?
A twitch of a tail no bigger than my shoe propels the little one out and up to the sunlight.
Swoosh! Swoof! Gasp! Exhalation?Inhalation?
Then a perfect arc downwards to the cold dark ocean that envelops this dance of light and play.
Kaitlin, thank you! These words are a perfect serving for this special day.
To Play
Work is a given.
Chores are a must.
Even when I read or craft or take a walk,
There is a purpose.
All are means to an end.
To play for the sake of nothing more
Than fun? Than joy? Than being alive?
What a novel idea.
-Karri Temple Brackett
December 26, 2023