Tuesday, April 29, 2003
I've been reading "Dr Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak. Although it's known as a Hollywood movie made in the 1960s, the novel itself is a giant of literature with many deep observations on the human condition. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in the 1960's but was not able to accept on pain of exile from Russia.
I thought the following poem really shows how poetry so passionately expresses emotion when something is lost:
“February. Get ink, shed tears..”
Boris Pasternak
February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.
Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noise of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all your grieving
Are muffled when the rainshower falls.
To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.
Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.
1912
Piokiwi 3:47 pm
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