#Nelly Sachs

[petaltexturedskies]

Nelly Sachs, from "Enigmas of Night" in The Seeker

[oldschool-romantic]

-Nelly Sachs

[sinligh]

As the year is ending,

The residual of all the life I’ve forbidden myself out of habit

is barely drawing a new beginning line

So where do i start ? today ?

By the time I woke up today i was already late, not in the sense that i had somewhere to be. No, but the urge to up and leave was almost hysterical

The only thing contradicting it

Was the hesitancy I chained my feet to before I went to sleep last night.

One foot in December, the other in January.

I thought i could still put an effort in trying, but then i started counting all the steps that i took away from reality

I’m so full of life that i don’t know how to put any of it to use; bits and pieces are falling behind because i have my hands so full of myself.

I rationalize the amount of love i absorb into my body, but.. it’s never wasted on me.

If it’s too much for me today, I’ll save it in, store it in a dark corner in my brain that resembles a personal pandora box

my prefrontal cortex

and when everything gets overwhelmingly dark I’ll open it then, let all the leftover love roam my world, and if it ruins me then so be it and if it fixes me…

Well, i don’t see it.

I strive for depth but the more i dig the deeper I’m buried

Naïve enough to expect that someone on the surface will surely notice, and walk back on my steps.

But it’s nothing to worry about now, is it ?

I’m young and I’m invincible and I’m on top of the world

I’m hesitant and I’m rotten. and I can’t stop thinking about throwing myself into this world

The way i was thrown in a pool as a child, expecting that contact will trigger an instinctive response and I’ll swim.. I’ll live.

So.. if I start spinning around myself in my kitchen like a dervish would do in sufi whirling..

it’s only because I’m overflowing with all that I want to be.. but i can’t.

•••

•Quotes: Nelly Sachs, tr. by Eric Plattner/ Anne Sexton/ Fariha Róisín/ Sylvia Plath/ Mayclair/ Taylor Swift

•Original context: Sinligh

•Art reference:

1. Mother and Children by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (Details) 2. Jean-Augustin Franquelin (detail). 3. Ettore Tito - Con la rosa tra le labbra. 4. Louis Janmot, Fleur des champs (details) 5. Art by Salvatore Postiglione (detail)

[okuryazarlar]

Eserlerinde savaşın insan üzerindeki tahribatını konu edinen, 1966 Nobel Edebiyat Ödülü paydaşı İsveçli şair ve yazar Nelly Sachs, 132 yıl evvel bugün dünyaya gelmişti.

[oldwinesoul]

December's language is imprecise grief,

// Nelly Sachs, tr. by Eric Plattner, The Seeker: "Enigmas of Night,"

[schizografia]

Invece di una patria / trattengo le metamorfosi del mondo.

Nelly Sachs

[cor-ardens-archive]

nelly sachs | anne sexton

[subtextures]

Quick Take After Reading: Glowing Enigma by Nelly Sachs

Around 5 years ago I was lucky enough to attend a week long seminar in teaching poetry put on by the Poetry Foundation  in Chicago. (Thanks again to the Ann Richards Foundation for the airfare). While there we were brought to the Poetry Foundation’s poetry Library. They have the largest collection of poetry anywhere, housing over 30,000 volumes of poetry. It was overwhelming, especially because we were only there for about an hour. I browsed the upstairs shelves pulling one book after another, and reading a poem or two, then writing down the title and author if I was struck for some reason during my quick evaluation. One of the books I found on the shelves was Nelly Sachs’ Glowing Enigma. I added it to my list of books I wanted to read, then pulled another book off the shelf. The following  Christmas, Lisa gave me most of the books on the list that I made in Chicago. 

A few days ago, while cleaning off my book shelves, I found Glowing Enigma again. This time I read the whole poem. It is a beautiful book, strange and enigmatic (surprise! from the title). Sachs was a friend of Paul Celan, the Romanian poet who survived Auschwitz and wrote hermitic poems that are difficult to glean meaning from (at least for me), but are always worth the effort. Sachs is similar to Celan in that aspect. I am glad I found Glowing Enigma again. It was a beautiful book, filled with strangely lovely poems (or sections of a longer poem, what would you call those?) Here is one example:

How many blinking of eyelashes

when horror came

no eyelid to be lowered

and a heap of time put together 

painted over the air’s humility

this can be put on paper only

with one eye ripped out—

[las-microfisuras]

Y nadie sabe cómo seguir

.

Aquí

donde naufragué en sal,

aquí en el mar

con sus azules niños de pecho,

que se nutren

posesos de luna

en el ama del alma-

aquí en la arena,

que danzaba en el zodíaco,

aquí yace lo cifrado con lo no nacido

apareces

hacia atrás

en el vacío oscureciente,

que en torno a ti espera,

una cesta para ser llenada

con frutas

que van por metálicas vías astrales

o

son expedidas

mi aliento te tiendo

y caigo

para habitar nuevamente en un cardo

que nunca será flor-.

- Nelly Sachs. Versión de Javier Tubía

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

Nelly Sachs, excerpt from Flight and Metamorphosis (transl. Joshua Weiner and Linda B. Parshall)

[begottaum]

But perhaps God needs the longing, wherever else should it dwell,

Which with kisses and tears and sighs fills mysterious spaces of air -

And perhaps is invisible soil from which roots of stars grow and swell -

And the radiant voice across fields of parting which calls to reunion there?

O my beloved, perhaps in the sky of longing worlds have been born of our love -

Just as our breathing, in and out, builds a cradle for life and death?

We are grains of sand dark with farewell, lost in births’ secret treasure trove,

Around us already perhaps future moons, suns and stars blaze in a fiery wreath.

Nelly Sachs, Translated by Ruth and Mathew Mead

[petaltexturedskies]

December's language is imprecise grief and drunkenness.

Nelly Sachs, from "Enigmas of Night" in The Seeker

[higherentity]

[obsessioncollector]

love is a plant in desert sands

it serves in fire

and is not consumed—

Nelly Sachs, "Turned Away," Flight and Metamorphosis, trans. Joshua Weiner

[theprofessorofdesire]

[rikes-lyrics]

Wie wahr, hochgeschätzte Nelly Sachs ....