Chitra R.

“It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.”
― Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland

“The good ones

who listen

to women

to children and the poor

die too soon,

their lives bedeviled

by opposition:

our hearts grieve for them.


This was the world my father knew.


A poor man

he saw good men come and mostly go;

leaving behind

the stranded and bereft.

People of hopes, dreams, and so much

hard work!

Yearning for a future
suddenly

foreclosed.


But today

you write me all is well

even though the admirable

Hugo Chavez

has died this afternoon.


Never again will we hear that voice

of reasoned anger

and disgust

of passionate vision

and of triumph.


This is true.


But what a lot he did in his 58 years!

You say.

What a mighty ruckus

Hugo Chavez made!


This is also true.


Thank you for reminding me.


That though life -

this never-ending loop -

has passed us by today

but carried off

in death

a hero

of the masses

it is his spirit

of fiercely outspoken

cariño

that is not lost.


That inheritance

has gone instantly

into the people

to whom he listened

and it is there

that we will expect it

to rise

as early as

tomorrow;

and there

that

we will encounter it

always

soon again.”
― Alice Walker

“There are those who say that when civilization progresses a bit further transportation facilities will move into the skies and under the ground, and that our streets will again be quiet, but I know perfectly well that when that day comes some new device for torturing the old will be invented.”
― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

“Long accustomed to a life of self-indulgent solitude, he began to yearn for the beauty of giving himself to others. The nobility of the word 'sacrifice' became clear to him. He took satisfaction in the feeling of his own littleness as a single seed whose purpose was to carry forward from the past into the future the life of the species called humanity. He even sympathized with the thought that the human species, together with the various kinds of minerals and plants, was no more than a small pillar that helped support a single vast organism adrift in the cosmos-- and with the thought that it was no more precious than the other animals and plants.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, Palm of the Hand Stories