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Growing Things

We are officially green.  After what seemed an eternity, the crabapple trees are blossoming (white!  pink!  red!), and we’re seeing the fresh, lime green leaves uncurl on the branches.  Such a happy color—green.  Don’t you think?

Thought I’d share a couple of projects Liliana has been working on.

First, her fairy garden.

 

 

A close-up.

 

 

Not long ago, she brought home a bean from school.  It was bundled in a Ziploc bag, wrapped in soggy paper towels.  We watched it sprout (long, leggy roots!), then Dan and she planted it.  Voilà! Last weekend it began flowering.


 

So.  Our new color is green.  What’s yours?  Care to share?

And in the meantime, I have a gift for you.  A poem by Pablo Neruda, entitled “Keeping Quiet.”  While green things grow, “perhaps the earth is teaching us.”

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon, translated by Stephen Mitchell

 

[Post image: Liliana in ballet class]

One Comment


  1. Sylvia
    May 29, 2011

    Beautiful poem and pictures.. The poem actually brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for sharing. Love. Sylvia

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