Poetry.

I'm post-happy today, sitting, playing about on my computer, thinking, and reading poetry.

When one of my friends died, I went back to my childhood church for the funeral. I couldn't put my grief into anything--it was a big, black sky in my belly, all thundery and rumbly. Add to that nausea my post-traumatic reactions that I had from being so close to where I was raped and nearby a pastor who hurt me by belittling myself and my experiences when I went to him for help...I was a mess.

I tried so hard that day to go out of myself and to not be so self-centered when I was in the church for my childhood friend and his family. I'm not sure I succeeded. I spent half the time in my basement hidey-hole, clutching my old cove of stale candy for comfort, my red top stuffed in my mouth to cork the screaming. Whatever sanity I exhibited that day was divine, not handmade.

And the poetry I was reading: Jan Kochanowski, a Polish renaissance man, who wrote "Treny" or Laments in a keen for his dead daughter. I placed my forehead on the hard wood of the pew in front of me, back arched forward as if in kneeling, but still sitting, refusing to kneel in protest to the horrid spot to the right of the coffin, in protest to the closed coffin. All respect, but I wanted to scream that sermon out of my head (which, truly, was beautifully and with heart given, it was just where I was and am).

There is an incredible translation of Laments by Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney, but that has piles of copyrights on it by the two inimitable translators, so we internet English-readers are left with the coded Polish verse, centuries old, to hack at with our Polish-English dictionaries.

Wszytki płacze, wszytki łzy Heraklitowe
I lamenty, i skargi Symonidowe,
Wszytki troski na świecie, wszytki wzdychania
I żale, i frasunki, i rąk łamania,
Wszytki a wszytki za raz w dom się mój noście,
A mnie płakać mej wdzięcznej dziewki pomożcie,
Z którą mię niebożna śmierć rozdzieliła
I wszytkich moich pociech nagle zbawiła.
Tak więc smok, upatrzywszy gniazdko kryjome,
Słowiczki liche zbiera, a swe łakome
Gardło pasie; tymczasem matka szczebiece
Uboga, a na zbójcę coraz się miece,
Próżno! bo i na samę okrutnik zmierza,
A ta nieboga ledwe umyka pierza.
“Prózno płakać" - podobno drudzy rzeczecie.
Cóż, prze Bóg żywy, nie jest prózno na świecie ?
Wszytko prózno! Macamy gdzie miękcej w rzeczy,
A ono wszędy ciśnie ! Błąd - wiek człowieczy !
Nie wiem, co lżej: czy w smutku jawnie żałować,
Czyli się z przyrodzeniem gwałtem mocować?

It gives comfort, it does.