On the Metro

Yesterday we spent some time at the market with two friends: he is Quebeçois, she is Latin American. We rode our bikes to Jean-Talon to meet them, spent a couple of hours sampling a special tasting-display of Quebec wines (those ice-wines made from apples are really delicious) and cheeses, indulging in an order of deep-fried smelts and calamari, and watching as our friends tapped and selected a rolling-cart-full of melons, corn, peppers, cauliflower, apples – all the heaviest things the market had to offer! Switching back and forth between not two but three languages is also the best practice one could hope for.

They took the metro home, we rode, and then worked for a while before meeting them again in the evening at Le Sommet de l’Harmonica ("Harmonica Summit"), a festival of Quebeçois and traditional music and dance – this year with an emphasis on master harmonica players – which is taking place this weekend at Park Lafontaine.

"After we left you," said E., "we got on the metro. I realized after a while that there was a kind of crazy woman at the other end of the car, and she was imitating D. – you know, talking with her hands and so on."

The woman of this pair is, to say the least, very expressive.

"I was watching her, kind of, but then she got up and approached us. I didn’t know what to expect. But in this very heavy Quebec accent she said to me – looking at the big bunch of basil sticking out of my bag – ‘You have verduuuure!’" (You know: "greens".)

I said, "Yes, it’s basil, it’s delicious."

She looked at me and then said, "You know, that stuff gets a lot of fleas in it."

"Yes," I said, "I know. And this one is COVERED!"

E. said that didn’t faze the woman in the least, and the three of them ended up having quite an entertaining conversation before they got off the train…

Transformation

I haven’t written a single poem

in months.

I’ve lived humbly, reading the paper,

pondering the riddle of power

and the reasons for obedience.

I’ve watched sunsets

(crimson, anxious),

I’ve heard birds grow quiet

and night’s muteness.

I’ve seen sunflowers dangling

their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman

had gone strolling through the gardens.

September’s sweet dust gathered

on the windowsill and lizards

hid in the bends of walls.

I’ve taken long walks,

craving one thing only:

lightening,

transformation,

you.

-Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh

from the current issue of World Literature Today, which features Zagajewski, the 2004 Neustadt Laureate.

Augustine called human beings “a great deep” (grande profundum), and if we mean anything at all by the word “Being,” it is that Being is a great deep:

"If by ‘abyss’ we understand a great depth, is not man’s heart an abyss? For what is there more profound than that abyss? Man may speak, may be seen by the operations of their members, may be heard speaking: but whose thought is penetrated, whose heart is seen into? Do you not believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?"

from On Presence, Variations and Reflections, Ralph Harper, Trinity Press

Note: For many years, I kept a collection of quotations from things I was reading that I wanted to remember and think about. Like the journals I kept for years and years, the quotation collection has languished since I started this blog. But the other day I went back to it and looked through and decided there were a lot worth re-reading and maybe sharing (with a very humble nod to whiskey river, whose collection and sensibility regarding quotations exceeds anyone’s) so from time to time I’ll post one here, under the category of "They Said".

Augustine called human beings “a great deep” (grande profundum), and if we mean anything at all by the word “Being,” it is that Being is a great deep:

"If by ‘abyss’ we understand a great depth, is not man’s heart an abyss? For what is there more profound than that abyss? Man may speak, may be seen by the operations of their members, may be heard speaking: but whose thought is penetrated, whose heart is seen into? Do you not believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?"

from On Presence, Variations and Reflections, Ralph Harper, Trinity Press

Note: For many years, I kept a collection of quotations from things I was reading that I wanted to remember and think about. Like the journals I kept for years and years, the quotation collection has languished since I started this blog. But the other day I went back to it and looked through and decided there were a lot worth re-reading and maybe sharing (with a very humble nod to whiskey river, whose collection and sensibility regarding quotations exceeds anyone’s) so from time to time I’ll post one here, under the category of "They Said".

Augustine called human beings “a great deep” (grande profundum), and if we mean anything at all by the word “Being,” it is that Being is a great deep:

"If by ‘abyss’ we understand a great depth, is not man’s heart an abyss? For what is there more profound than that abyss? Man may speak, may be seen by the operations of their members, may be heard speaking: but whose thought is penetrated, whose heart is seen into? Do you not believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?"

from On Presence, Variations and Reflections, Ralph Harper, Trinity Press

Note: For many years, I kept a collection of quotations from things I was reading that I wanted to remember and think about. Like the journals I kept for years and years, the quotation collection has languished since I started this blog. But the other day I went back to it and looked through and decided there were a lot worth re-reading and maybe sharing (with a very humble nod to whiskey river, whose collection and sensibility regarding quotations exceeds anyone’s) so from time to time I’ll post one here, under the category of "They Said".

Augustine called human beings “a great deep” (grande profundum), and if we mean anything at all by the word “Being,” it is that Being is a great deep:

"If by ‘abyss’ we understand a great depth, is not man’s heart an abyss? For what is there more profound than that abyss? Man may speak, may be seen by the operations of their members, may be heard speaking: but whose thought is penetrated, whose heart is seen into? Do you not believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?"

from On Presence, Variations and Reflections, Ralph Harper, Trinity Press

Note: For many years, I kept a collection of quotations from things I was reading that I wanted to remember and think about. Like the journals I kept for years and years, the quotation collection has languished since I started this blog. But the other day I went back to it and looked through and decided there were a lot worth re-reading and maybe sharing (with a very humble nod to whiskey river, whose collection and sensibility regarding quotations exceeds anyone’s) so from time to time I’ll post one here, under the category of "They Said".

Augustine called human beings “a great deep” (grande profundum), and if we mean anything at all by the word “Being,” it is that Being is a great deep:

"If by ‘abyss’ we understand a great depth, is not man’s heart an abyss? For what is there more profound than that abyss? Man may speak, may be seen by the operations of their members, may be heard speaking: but whose thought is penetrated, whose heart is seen into? Do you not believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?"

from On Presence, Variations and Reflections, Ralph Harper, Trinity Press

Note: For many years, I kept a collection of quotations from things I was reading that I wanted to remember and think about. Like the journals I kept for years and years, the quotation collection has languished since I started this blog. But the other day I went back to it and looked through and decided there were a lot worth re-reading and maybe sharing (with a very humble nod to whiskey river, whose collection and sensibility regarding quotations exceeds anyone’s) so from time to time I’ll post one here, under the category of "They Said".