Monday Musings

My reading picked up again this weekend, and I spent a great deal of Saturday and Sunday going through my recent acquisitions.

Saturday morning, my Kindle arrived!  I've got 4 books loaded and ready for our trip to St. John's for Little Kris' wedding.  We will leave on Friday and return on Wednesday, and there will be plenty of time for reading on the plane and on the beach.  No books to haul!  Just the Kindle.  I'm smiling at the prospect.

Because I don't want to read anything on my Kindle yet (saving that experience to savor on the trip), I've been going through my library haul at a good clip.  

I've finished The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge by Patricia Duncker, Sacrifice by S.J. Bolton, and Burning Lamp by Amanda Quick.  Have almost finished Citizens of London and am still reading Teaching Yoga (and probably will be for quite a while) by Stephens.

And a poem to share:

the gate

by Tadeusz Różewicz

Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Lasciate ogni speranza
Voi ch'entrate

abandon all hope

ye who enter here

the inscription at the entrance to the inferno

of Dante's Divine Comedy

courage!

behind that gate

there is no hell

hell has been dismantled

by theologians

and deep psychologists

converted into allegory

for humanitarian and educational

reasons

courage!

behind that gate

the same thing begins again

two drunken grave-diggers

sit at the edge of a hole

they're drinking non-alcoholic beer

and munching on sausage

winking at us

under the cross

they play soccer

with Adam's skull

the hole awaits

tomorrow's corpse

the "stiff" is on its way

courage!

here we will await

the final judgment

water gathers in the hole

cigarette butts are floating in it

courage!

behind that gate

there will neither be history

nor goodness nor poetry

and what will there be

dear stranger?

there will be stones

stone

upon stone

stone upon stone

and on that stone

one more

stone