Hi everyone,
I have not felt the urge to write since coming home and I am still weak and in a lot of pain.
I can only concentrate for short periods but am able to get around on a wheelchair so things are looking up.
I have begun reading again and picked up an old book, a classic in South African literature written during the height of the apartheid years (60s to 70s).
The insight sensitivity and compassion as well as a deep understanding of Africans of all racial groups is truly amazing.
This poem was in the authors notes and it completely blew me away. Yes, I am still emotionally wobbly from my ordeal.
I cried for it's beauty and wisdom.
I would like to share it with you.
Love Wally
Cry the Beloved Country
By Alan Paton, from his book of the same name.
Cry, the beloved country,
for the unborn child
that is the inheritor of our fear.
Let him not love the earth too deeply.
Let him not laugh too gladly
when the water runs through his fingers,
nor stand too silent when the setting sun
makes red the veld with fire.
Let him not be too moved
when the birds of his land are singing,
nor give too much of his heart
to a mountain or a valley.
For fear will rob him of all
if he gives too much!
Wally, How wonderful to see your name once again in the halls of MM. This is truly a very deep and moving poem. I think it could apply to any troubled land, or even people. I know that you have been through a terrible personal tragic time. You have often been in my thoughts and prayers. I hope that every day you get better, I know how hard the struggle for me is to come back from five years of being debilitated to where I am today, but yours I think may be harder. Have courage and faith, take care and write when you are well enough.
Steve
Hello dearest Wally!
Thank you so much for writing this moving post in Rosetta Stone, in spite of your weakness and great pain.
You have been in my thoughts all along, and I have prayed for your total recovery. At first I corresponded with your daughter Nicola, but I was so absolutely shocked by her report on your experience (so unjust) that I was left speechless...except to pray for you.
I know that many people have been praying for you...And here you are, I don't know how much is due to your own tenacity, life-force, strength of will, hardiness, whatever... The important thing is that you're actually enjoying reading good literature, of the best, and wanted to share it with us. That's a precious act on your part.
The poem is beautiful and heart-rending. Much of what's happened in Africa -and continues to happen- is similar tho' not the same as in Argentina. Here the Spanish Conqueror practically annihilated all ethnic groups, and the few remaining are still being devastated by hunger, discrimination, disease, stolen lands, ad nauseum. None of them are in power, as in Bolivia, where the Aymaras survived in large numbers and an Aymaran president won the elections, Evo Morales. It remains to be seen how he resolves the mind-boggling problems, or whether he's thrown out by a coup-d'etat.
On the other hand, the colonists who came after the first Conqueror, also suffered tremendously in the vast expanses of Argentina, especially in my beloved Argentine Patagonia. Ergo, I wrote my collection "Patagonia Lost", which Lori published after I won enough percentages in comps to cover the cost (I can't afford self-publishing). In those poems, I poured my heart out... but not on Paton's level of perfection, not by a long shot...!
Cry the Beloved Country also brings tears to my eyes.
By coincidence, I happen to be reading "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. I never thought it was "my kind of book", and left it aside. WRONG. So far, I'm amazed by his extraordinary prose and talent for putting across the feeling of being in those regions and for those macabre actions carried out, which ultimately synthesizes the madness of humankind. Or some human beings...
Sorry for rambling on...it's just the pleasure to know that you're back and healing.
Hugs, Sylvia
PS: The poem also deserves to be in Legendary Libations, where perhaps more members will spy it. Bye!
G'day,Wally.
Just happened to drop in on this one.
Looks like your on the mend, though, painfully slow.
Cry the Beloved Country
The few poetic words about the future (now) and the problems to be inherited.
John
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