by Robert Louis Stevenson. 'Travel" was one of my favourites , who could guess that I would live in the land " where the golden apples grow." ? A.A. Milne, "When we were very young" still speaks volumes to me. Poetry is? Our voice, our expression, our values, our human connection.
Two things, connected with poetry, caught my attention today. The first was the always excellent post by Ms Baroque who enlightened me with regard to the entertainment, diversion, solace and courage that some of the troops, during WW1, experienced. The second is present day and reminds us of the power of words and the price to be paid, in this case, a love poem, addressed to those hearts that will remain, forever, deaf to the poet in all of us.
Poetic justice
Ar rin bek ka pyaw dair
(Aaron Beck, the psychiatrist, said)
Nar nar khan sah dat hma khan sah hma
(Only if you know how to suffer painfully)
Yoo yoo moo moo go phyit nay hma
(Only if you are crazy – crazy )
Kyi myat tet a noot pyinnya lo
(Can you appreciate a great work of Art)
Hmoo hmoan hmaing way zay det dat poan model ma lay yay
(Dear little photomodel who makes me dizzy)
Kyi daunk kyi mah kya hma a thair kwair det yawgah det
(They say it is a broken liver disease, a great and terrible one) [note: broken heart in Burmese is usually expressed as a broken liver]
Than baung myah zwa thaw chit tat thu myah
(Millions of those who know how to love)
Shwe a teet cha hta thaw let myah phyint let khoak tee yway yair bar
(Laugh and clap those gold-gilded hands)
This reminds me of stories I read, about soldiers at war reading letters from back home...there's something about hand-written letters, opening that envelope, straightening the sheets of paper, savouring each word, I can just imagine what it did for those soldiers.
ReplyDeleteIndeed GG, and how hard it is for us to write them these days, with email and telephone, but just the other day I got a letter from my daughter and felt exactly what you describe, it made me decide to make more of an effort in future.
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