Remember that child-like innocence of yesteryear, when somehow belief in the good-yet-to-come resonated at the very center of the heart? Recall the playful nature of hope, the mystique of wonder, as a certainty to behold?
Who says that kind of thinking is only for the very young or naïve?
Oh, the surprise of good things!
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,/
I felt a door opening in me and I entered/
the clarity of early morning./–Czeslaw Milosz “Late Ripeness” translated by Robert Hass & Czeslaw Milosz
One can almost sense the fresh scent, the virginal light of dawn pouring into this poet’s seasoned heart. The elderly speaker seems to have received a second-wind of sorts!
But, isn’t that the way of gift, especially when it arrives unexpectedly? Some would use the word, blessing. I love the word blessing. Can you feel it? It rolls off the tongue with a wistful gentleness.
As I listened captive at Red Rocks Amphitheater earlier this season, I couldn’t help feeling the blessing of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello and heart. I swear it was not his fingers and horse-tail bow dancing up and down the metal strings, but it was entirely his gracious heart lifting the sold-out audience in awe. Before he played the hauntingly beautiful “Song of the Birds” in his encore, he explained the blessing of hearing it for the first time as a mere boy which indelibly touched his soul. The Catalonia Christmas hymn was arranged by Pablo Casals to inspire hope and peace to the people in 1939 when Casals was exiled under the Franco regime. Like the birds in that piece, my soul ascended high in a spiritually enlightened gift of seeing things anew, of restoration and beauty. Indeed, the strings of my own heart had been plucked by the maestro.
Likewise, a seaside crowd in Coronado, California gathered together from various countries and cultures one summer evening as a gifted guitarist/vocalist played the oldies from rock and roll. How is it that those old songs stir up memories in living technicolor? How do the musical notes of harmony harmonize the hearts of the otherwise un— or disconnected? There was joy in the air, pure and simple. Complete strangers reminisced as the best of friends. A young couple pointed to the slightest swell of the pregnant belly. An unknown traveling high school alum sang and danced without restraint on the walkway. Lovers sang cheek to cheek. A loner swayed shoulder to shoulder with a socialite. Rich or poor, people ate, drank, sang, and danced. And shall I add . . . some prayed a whisper of gratitude. Toddlers twirled. Old-timers whirled. The stars twinkled. The waves lapped white foam to the sand in the moonlight. I would call it an evening of blessing.
Good things can come as a surprise sometimes. In the down times of difficulty, there is always that yearning.
For where we come from there is no division/
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be./–Czeslaw Milosz “Late Ripeness”
translated by Robert Hass & Czelsaw Milosz
Wishing everyone the purest gift of healing and joy in whatever form it happens to arrive. Happy Summer.
Thanks for stopping by.♥
_________________________________________
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49453/late-ripeness
“Late Ripeness” from Second Space: New Poems by Czeslaw Milosz. Translated by the author and Robert Hass. Copyright 2004 by Czeslaw Milosz. Translation copyright 2004 by Robert Hass. Reprinted with permission of Harper Collins Publishers.
Source: Collected Poems 1931-1987 (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1998)