Stranger, why should you not speak to me ?

Untitled, 1960, Ralph Eugene Meatyard. (1925 - 1972)

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"Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me,

why should you not speak to me?

And why should I not speak to you?”

－Walt Whitman - 'Leaves of Grass', 1900

Marine Solitude

Marine Solitude, 1852, Anton Melbye (1818 - 1875)

- Oil on Canvas -

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When no one's watching it,

The sea stops being the sea

And turns into what we are

When no one can see us.

It spaws other kinds of fish

And makes other kinds of waves.

It's the sea for the sea

And for those dreaming of it

Just as I am doing here.

ーJules Supervielle

We have only come to look

Paris Door, July 29, 1984, André Kertész

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Only you

Don't know what to make of the sudden slippiness,

The blind, white, awful, inaccessible slant.

There's no getting up it by the words you know.

No getting up by elephant or wheel or shoe.

We have only come to look.

New Year On Dartmoor (1962) - Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963) 

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急につるつるになった世の中を理解できないのはきみだけ。

目鼻が無くて、真っ白で、おそろしい、近づきがたい斜面の世界。

この世界を、きみにわかる言葉を使って組み立ててみせるのは不可能だ。

ゾウや、車輪や、靴の片割れなんぞで作り上げられるものじゃない。

わたしたちはただ見に来ただけ。

シルヴィア・プラス　－「ダートムーアの新年」より

吉原幸子　皆見昭　訳

One more time !

Mauerpark, Berlin, 1996, Sibylle Bergemann. Germany (1941 - 2010)

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Swing 

Swing me, swing me, swing me round, 

I don’t want my feet to touch the ground. 

Swing me an hour, swing me some more, 

swing me until a quarter past four. 

Swing me till summer, swing me through fall,

I promise I’ll never get tired at all.

Eve Merriam (1916 - 1992）

揺らせ　揺らせ　もっと揺らせ

もう地面に足をつけたくない 

もう１時間揺らそう　それからもっと

４時１５分まで揺らしていよう

夏まで揺らそう　秋の間中揺れていよう 

絶体飽きっこないんだから

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage / Canto the Third, George Gordon Byron

CXIII.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed
To its idolatries a patient knee, -
Nor coined my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.


CXIV.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me, -
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, - hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the falling: I would also deem
O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem, -
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.