by William Carlos Williams
What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet—
I lie here thinking of you.
The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.
There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colours
Of the whole world.
I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.
See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar—
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.
How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
01 January, 2010
01 October, 2007
My Heart's Dying
It has always been in my curiosity that the emotions the individual feels are becoming frail and superficial. And it has also never escaped my questioning of the emotion slowly being turned into a parody of itself, as characterized by the era we are living in now, the post-modern. In this post-modern age, the aura of the emotion has been transferred from the immersion in it to the playful, aggregate description of it, which is caused by and results in the unknowing detachment from it. The purity of the human emotion, due to the playfulness of post-modernism, has indeed been made into a parody, has been made light, fleeting and commercialized, in fact, as shown in noon time television shows where the pain and suffering of unfortunate people are used bait for network ratings. As we are detaching ourselves from the gravity of our emotions and merely experience it on a superficial, commercial level, we are slowly “de-centering” our essence of being human, which is to feel, to reason and to mourn, as the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. What should we then do in order to retain our experience of being human? I believe that there should be a re-examination into the self, making the self come into contact with its truly being itself, yet retaining the reality of post-modernism in its being.
A true culmination of one's being human is to be able to communicate. Communication should be present on the two primary parties involved: the communicator and the addressee, or the lover and the beloved, if this case is taken into the romantic setting. I believe, that in order for these parties, or all human beings who are in correspondence with each other, that the reciprocity of the emotions these parties are experiencing must be directed to the person, and not a mere face of the person. To explain this, we are using the example of a couple in mutual understanding. The boy tells the girl that her loves her. The girl curtly does the same. But when asked by a passing fellow of the reasons for loving each other, one hears the usual “Because he/she is hardworking,” “Because he/she is not ill-mannered” and “Because he/she has every trait I've wanted in a man/woman.” To the unsuspecting post-modernist, this dialogue would truly communicate the gravity of the emotion and commitment, since the post-modernist has an awareness of these emotions but is now indifferent to it. It is for this reason that parodies are made, since people try to find new ways of expression and of perspective. But does the majority of the people now living in this post-modern age know this history, and therefore somewhat is able to trace the emotion that is directed to the absolute singularity of the person?
Using love as an example in the context of post-modernism, we can clearly see that the emotion is indeed directed to a face of the person, and not to the person. When the boy says that he loves the girl, does he love the girl or the girl who is hardworking? The philosopher Jacques Derrida says that it is different to love the “who” and the “what” of the person than to love the absolute singularity of the person. If this love indeed is directed to the “who” and “what” of the person, then the miscommunication that results from the lack of reciprocity will ultimately cause the persons suffering which is actually not for them, but for a face of them (Let us take note that the dialogue of the couple used is a parody of other dialogues which are parodies in the first place, which makes it post-modern.) This suffering leads them to ask, “Why does he/she not love me anymore?” Then we, as the person of the passing fellow, ask this person, “Did she love you, or the qualities you possessed?”
Both lover and beloved are at fault here. If both only took the emotion seriously as an immersion into it, rather than loving the “who” and the “what,” both could be able to communicate, since in trying to communicate, both strive to re-examine themselves. And in the action of communicating is the culmination of being truly human in this post-modern setting. If only people were to re-examine themselves, there would be less suffering by maudlin coincidences, which are not directed to the person, but to a mere face, mask, or quality of the person.
A true culmination of one's being human is to be able to communicate. Communication should be present on the two primary parties involved: the communicator and the addressee, or the lover and the beloved, if this case is taken into the romantic setting. I believe, that in order for these parties, or all human beings who are in correspondence with each other, that the reciprocity of the emotions these parties are experiencing must be directed to the person, and not a mere face of the person. To explain this, we are using the example of a couple in mutual understanding. The boy tells the girl that her loves her. The girl curtly does the same. But when asked by a passing fellow of the reasons for loving each other, one hears the usual “Because he/she is hardworking,” “Because he/she is not ill-mannered” and “Because he/she has every trait I've wanted in a man/woman.” To the unsuspecting post-modernist, this dialogue would truly communicate the gravity of the emotion and commitment, since the post-modernist has an awareness of these emotions but is now indifferent to it. It is for this reason that parodies are made, since people try to find new ways of expression and of perspective. But does the majority of the people now living in this post-modern age know this history, and therefore somewhat is able to trace the emotion that is directed to the absolute singularity of the person?
Using love as an example in the context of post-modernism, we can clearly see that the emotion is indeed directed to a face of the person, and not to the person. When the boy says that he loves the girl, does he love the girl or the girl who is hardworking? The philosopher Jacques Derrida says that it is different to love the “who” and the “what” of the person than to love the absolute singularity of the person. If this love indeed is directed to the “who” and “what” of the person, then the miscommunication that results from the lack of reciprocity will ultimately cause the persons suffering which is actually not for them, but for a face of them (Let us take note that the dialogue of the couple used is a parody of other dialogues which are parodies in the first place, which makes it post-modern.) This suffering leads them to ask, “Why does he/she not love me anymore?” Then we, as the person of the passing fellow, ask this person, “Did she love you, or the qualities you possessed?”
Both lover and beloved are at fault here. If both only took the emotion seriously as an immersion into it, rather than loving the “who” and the “what,” both could be able to communicate, since in trying to communicate, both strive to re-examine themselves. And in the action of communicating is the culmination of being truly human in this post-modern setting. If only people were to re-examine themselves, there would be less suffering by maudlin coincidences, which are not directed to the person, but to a mere face, mask, or quality of the person.