Ode to Pablo Neruda

My favorite poet of all time did not write in English. He was a Chilean. But somehow the great Neruda’s poetry translates beautifully. To wit:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, “The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.” The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

Old Bees Buzzing Round

Thanks to one and all for the heartfelt birthday wishes and the kind remembrances of old times. From time to time in this life a guy really needs to be reminded that he has his peeps out there who care deeply about him. This has been that kind of year for me-- a lot of remembering good times and not so much creating them. I'm set to reverse that course in 2010.The ten day trip I just took was some uplifting experience. I can feel my arts calling me. Filmmaking, music, photography, entertainment....all buzzing round busy as the bees they used to be. Exhilarating.

I have arrived home just in time for the 20^th Annual Lowcountry Blues Bash which is happening all over my hometown of Chucktown right now every day for 12 days straight. And I’m talking gut-bucket, kick-out-the-jams, real, sure enough BLUES! This is no vanilla, disco, r&b stuff. More exhilaration.

This morning, Pink and I went for a long walk in a big field we know down by the Cooper River near the new bridge. Pink loved his run. As for me, I contemplated turning 59 and realized how happy I was to be at home in Charleston, South Carolina.