by George Seferis<\/p>\n
And yet we should consider how we go forward.
\nTo feel is not enough, nor to think, nor to move
\nnor to put your body in danger in front of an old loophole
\nwhen scalding oil and molten lead furrow the walls.<\/p>\n
And yet we should consider towards what we go forward,
\nnot as our pain would have it, and our hungry children
\nand the chasm between us and the companions calling from the opposite shore;
\nnor as the bluish light whispers it in an improvised hospital,
\nthe pharmaceutic glimmer on the pillow of the youth operated on at noon;
\nbut it should be in some other way, I would say like
\nthe long river that emerges from the great lakes enclosed deep in Africa,
\nthat was once a god and then became a road and a benefactor, a judge and a delta;
\nthat is never the same, as the ancient wise men taught,
\nand yet always remains the same body, the same bed, and the same Sign,
\nthe same orientation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I want nothing more than to speak simply, to be granted that grace.
\nBecause we\u2019ve loaded even our song with so much music that it\u2019s slowly sinking
\nand we\u2019ve decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold
\nand it\u2019s time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If pain is human we are not human beings merely to suffer pain;
\nthat\u2019s why I think so much these days about the great river,
\nthis meaning that moves forward among herbs and greenery
\nand beasts that graze and drink, men who sow and harvest,
\ngreat tombs even and small habitations of the dead.
\nThis current that goes its way and that is not so different from the blood of men,
\nfrom the eyes of men when they look straight ahead without fear in their hearts,
\nwithout the daily tremor for trivialities or even for important things;
\nwhen they look straight ahead like the traveller who is used to gauging his way by the stars,
\nnot like us, the other day, gazing at the enclosed garden of a sleepy Arab house,
\nbehind the lattices the cool garden changing shape, growing larger and smaller,
\nwe too changing, as we gazed, the shape of our desire and our hearts,
\nat noon\u2019s precipitation, we the patient dough of a world that throws us out and kneads us,
\ncaught in the embroidered nets of a life that was as it should be and then became dust and sank into the sands
\nleaving behind it only that vague dizzying sway of a tall palm tree.<\/p>\n
Cairo, 20 June \u201942<\/p>\n
–Read at St. Lydia’s on December 11<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by George Seferis And yet we should consider how we go forward. To feel is not enough, nor to think, nor to move nor to put your body in danger in front of an old loophole when scalding oil and molten lead furrow the walls. And yet we should consider towards what we go forward, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1077,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/1077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}