21 May 2006

The mayness of May

They trip to fall into themselves unknowingly.

—Seamus Heaney, The Play Way
1.
I'm taking all the chances to make my chances.

2.
Elliptically talking to friends. Sentences disguising the sentiment.

3.
I make a dedication not to list the statistics, for I want to turn the facts into story. That which has beginning, middle—how I'll linger in the middle, and I'll hurt in the middle, and I'll wait in the middle, might even make promises in the middle.

4.
For something sane:

But for the name, the only pronoun appropriate is in our common tongue: siya, niya, kaniya. And of between us: kita.

5.
Pagtingin: no, never, never a feeling, but a way of seeing.

I have a way of seeing you.

That which the I can never elucidate to the you.

Thus the injury.

6.
With E:
E: I don't think I can handle rejection.

Me: I undermine rejection with worth of that gift of knowing someone finds a certain wonder about you.
Simply acknowledge that someone honestly admires you.

Either accept it or reject it: in both ways, you'll acknowledge it.

Own my sincerity. Hold the most abstruse part of me.

7.
And stray, or end it in the middle?
When suddenly at midnight you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don't mourn them uselessly;
as one long prepared and full of courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and full of courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of the coward;
listen—your final pleasure—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

—CP Cavafy, The God Abandons Antony

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