About the poem II

3 Comments
photo R Angert

Dear Caminoheads,

 

Oh Monday… does everyone feel at the end of Monday as if you were run over by a truck? I do. Mondays I end exhausted, even when it is Wednesday when I have the craziest of the days at work…

 

Anyway, what I wanted to write about today is the poem… actually, not the poem but the name of book where the poem is in. The book is called “Everyone at this party has two names”. I read this title when I was looking for the poem and found it funny. And like the poem, it kept in my mind going in circles -tailgating-. Isn’t it the truth? Don’t we all have two names?

 

The Boss here is an example: Phil is the Engineer; Felipe is the poet. John Conway is the Marine, PFJ is our farmer pilgrim friend. .. we are us within us, we are the two people who seem to be running in opposite directions, and fueled by different dreams, but living this one life.

 

And this took to remember another poem that I read for the first time in English in 2013, even when it was a poem from a Spanish writer published a year before I was born; this translation is from Robert Bly…

I am not I.
                   I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.
I leave the reflection up to you (but please share it with all of us in the comments!)
Which is your other name? Loves,
Cris

3 thoughts on “About the poem II”

  1. Love this, I am an educator and counselor…. While also an artist and adventurer. Whichever, I hope they remind myself and others, all dreams are possible when a little sparkle dust is added…. And then we all know “it is all solved by walking.” (St Augustine)

  3. Thanks for your thoughts and the poem. . it resonates as I have been rereading my old journals, and thinking about the past, and I think about my “former” self, who is of course myself, but in a sense is a different person.
    Lots to ponder with all of this.

Comments are closed.