The best time of the day

Cool summer nights.

Windows open.

Lamps burning.

Fruit in the bowl.

And your head on my shoulder.

These the happiest moments in the day.

Next to the early morning hours,

of course. And the time

just before lunch.

And the afternoon, and

early evening hours.

But I do love

These summer nights.

Even more, I think,

than those other times.

The work finished for the day.

And no one who can reach us now.

Or ever.

Tekst: Raymond Carver, "The best time of the day"

Foto: Rosa, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dadiva/

This word love

I will not go when she calls

even if she says I love you,

especially that,

even though she swears

and promises nothing

but love love.

The light in this room

covers every

thing equally;

even my arm throws no shadow,

it too is consumed with light.

But this word love-

this word grows dark, grows

heavy and shakes itself, begins

to eat, to shudder and convulse

its way through this paper

until we too have dimmed in

its transparent throat and still

are riven, are glistening, hip and thigh, your

loosened hair which knows

no hesitation.

Gedicht: Raymond Carver, "This Word Love"

Foto: Rosa, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dadiva/

A poem not against songbirds

Lighten up, songbirds. Give me a break.

No need to carry on this way,

even if it is morning. I need more sleep.

Where were you keeping yourselves when I was thirty?

When the house stayed dark and quiet all day,

as if somebody had died?

And this same somebody, or somebody else,

cooked a huge, morose meal for the survivors.

A meal that lasted ten years.

Go on, sweethearts. Come back in an hour,

my friends. Then I'll be wide awake.

You'll see. This time I can promise.

Gedicht: Raymond Carver, 'A poem not against songbirds'

Foto: Rosa, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dadiva/

The Gift

This morning there's snow everywhere. We remark on it.

You tell me you didn't sleep well. I say

I didn't eather. You had a terrible night. "Me too."

We're extraordinarily calm and tender with each other

as if sensing the other's rickety state of mind.

As if we knew what the other was feeling. We don't,

of course. We never do. No matter.

It's the tenderness I care about. That's the gift

this morning that moves and holds me.

Same as every morning.

Raymond Carver, "The gift"

Foto: Rosa

Where water comes together with other water

Voor Ibán

Toen ik het een paar jaar geleden met een goede vriend over het hardlopen had en ik vertelde dat ik altijd langs de rivier ren, verwees hij me naar een gedicht van Raymond Carver: "Where water comes together with other water". Nooit had ik van Carver gehoord en ging op internet driftig op zoek naar dit gedicht. Eerst las ik enkele fragmenten van zijn teksten. Het was gelijk raak, mijn innerlijke wereld stond op zijn kop. Impactant. De harde realiteit van het dagelijks leven. Direct, ironisch, intiem, hard maar, te gelijk, bijzonder gevoelig. Zijn stijl: beknopt en compact. Na veel zoeken vond ik het gedicht over de rivieren, in het Spaans. Ik ben het nooit vergeten. Daarna heb ik in een korte periode al zijn boeken gekocht.

Als ik nu langs de rivier ren, denk ik er vaak aan, en de wereld om me heen verandert met de woorden mee.

I love creeks and the music they make.

And rills, in glades and meadows, before

they have a chance to become creeks.

I may even love them best of all

for their secrecy. I almost forgot

to say something about the source!

Can anything be more wonderful than a spring?

But the big streams have my heart too.

And the places streams flow into rivers.

The open mouths of rivers where they join the sea.
The places where waters comes together

with other water. Those places stand out

in my mind like holy places.

But these coastal rivers!

I love them the way some men love horses

or glamorous women. I have a thing

for this cold swift water.

Just looking at it makes my blood run

and my skin tingle. I could sit

and watch these rivers for hours.

Not one of them like any other.

I'm 45 years old today.

Would anyone believe it if I said

I was once 35?

My heart empty and sere at 35!

Five more years had to pass

before it began to flow again.I'll take all the time I please this afternoon

before leaving my place alongside this river.
It pleases me, loving rivers.

Loving them all the way back

to their source.

Loving everything that increases me.

Raymond Carver: "Were water comes together with other water"

Foto: Rosa

Two Worlds

In air heavy
with odor of crocuses,

sensual smell of crocuses,
I watch a lemon sun disappear,

a sea change blue
to olive black.

I watch lightning leap from Asia as
sleeping,

my love stirs and breathes and
sleeps again,

part of this world and yet
part that.

Raymond Carver, "Two Worlds"
Foto: Jan-Willem Wolf
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingeliefhebber/

And what did you want?

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver, "Late fragment"

foto: Rosa

Happiness

So early it's still almost dark out.

I'm near the window with coffee,

and the usual early morning stuff

that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend

walking up the road

to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,

and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.

They are so happy

they aren't saying anything, these boys.

I think if they could, they would take

each other's arm.

It's early in the morning,

and they are doing this thing together.

They come on, slowly.

The sky is taking on light,

though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

Such beauty that for a minute

death and ambition, even love,

doesn't enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on

unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,

and early morning talk about it.

Raymond Carver, "Happiness"

Foto: Rosa