My world grows smaller and smaller

The passing of time is reducing my world to smaller and smaller dimensions. I drove my daughter to a home out in the country a while ago. She is attending a graduation party for her cousin's friend.

On the way we passed one house after another where friends once lived. I can close my eyes and see in my mind's eye those friends of old.

As I traveled back after dropping my daughter off I realize "I have more dead friends than live ones. "What if." I muse. " What if I could go to where they are lay sleeping, dig them up, shake them, scream into their dead ears, why did you leave me?"

Perhaps I could breathe some of my life into them and they maybe become young again and together we re-live old times laughing, singing and loving.

Then I am home again where I share my thoughts with my wife Tricia.

She does not laugh at me. She understands.

From 'Voyages of the Vicky Mary.'

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:silly:

This past holiday really drove it home for me. I lost my great-aunt on Dec 23. I never got to hear and record all her great stories (she was one day shy of 93). I miss her already, and we haven't even had the funeral yet.

Yellow with chinese red trim. Yes indeed. It is extremely bright.

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My mom does too.


It's sobering to think of those we lost. Live life to the fullest in their honor.

aging. Somehow leaving loved ones behind and wondering why do some of us continue on and others do not.

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"With bare teeth I want to dig the ground,
and move the dirt part by part,
in dry and furious bites.

I want to mine the earth until I find you,
to kiss your noble skull,
unbind your body and return you,
to my garden and my fig tree."

- Miguel Hernández,
Excerpt from 'Eulogy'

Miguel Hernandez

Yours is an interesting handle and an interesting poet.

Care to explain?

Please.

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My handle, for example:

- Obscurity and uniqueness (got to pick something nobody else thought of)
- Shock value (the most obvious reason)
- Mystic Symbolism (renewal, rebirth, self-sacrifice)
- Ethnicity (after all, I am Mexican-American)

There are other meaning, but you get the point.

I first encountered Miguel Hernandez through Juan Manuel Serrat, a Catalan artist who put many of Hernandez's poems to music. Very popular in the Spanish speaking world in the 70's - 80's. Hernandez is a symbol of the resistance to Fascism. This particular poem is a eulogy to a friend who was assassinated. It became particularly meaningful to me, after the fall of the World Trade Center. The symbolism matched the shock of loss experienced by so many, that I translated it to English. I have since seen other translations, but they seem devoid of the emotion in the original Spanish version.

I have a retired Navy acquaintance. Mexican American. He speaks an obscure language native to central America. I used to have that language site bookmarked. It is gone now.

Your handle reminded me of him. He was a Chief Hospital Corpsman SEAL.

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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=309x219

I'm an amateur linguist.

:hi:

Erasmo (Doc Rio) Riojas spoke that language, Nahuatl.

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Already, this affects me.

*sigh*

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all ...

Your world is not growing smaller, it only seems that way because so many have filled your heart that it has grown larger in comparison.

Where would we be as a society without poets, romantics, music, dreamers and writers?

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... I don't know, since there is a little bit of the poet, the romantic, the dreamer or the writer in all of us. ;)

but the older generation is all but gone and it is sobering. I mentally go down my old street and think "gone, gone, gone..."

Life is fleeting. I try to let these thoughts make my time more precious, rather than make me melancholy. Not always easy. Grandchildren help. My daughter told me she was pregnant with the 2 year old the day we buried my dad. The Circle of life and all that.

Blood Sweat and Tears Song.

And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be one child born
In this world
To carry on, to carry on.

The baby girl we adopted was born a few months after my father passed on.

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