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De Brits-Ierse dichter Cecil Day Lewis werd
geboren in Ballintogher, Ierland, op 27 april 1904. Zie ook alle tags voor Cecil Day
Lewis op dit blog.
My Mothers Sister
I see her against the pearl sky of Dublin
Before the turn of the century, a young woman
With all those brothers and sisters, green
eyes, hair
She could sit on; for high life, a meandering
sermon
(Church of Ireland) each Sunday,
window-shopping
In Dawson Street, picnics at Killiney and
Howth
To know so little about the growing of one
Who was angel and maid-of-all work to my
growth!
- Who, her sister dying, took on the four-year
Child, and the chance that now she would never
make
A child of her own; who, mothering me, flowered
in
The clover-soft authority of the meek.
Who, exiled, gossiping home chat from abroad
In roundhand letters to a drift of relations
Squires, Goldsmiths, Overends, Williams
sang the songs
Of Zion in a strange land. Hers the patience
Of one who made no claims, but simply loved
Because that was her nature, and loving so
Asked no more than to be repaid in kind.
If she was not a saint, I do not know
What saints are
Buying penny toys at Christmas
(The most a small purse could afford) to send
her
Nephews and nieces, shd never have thought the
shop
Could shine for me one day in Bethlehem
splendour.
Exiled again, after ten years, my father
Remarrying, she faced the bitter test
Of charity to abdicate in loves name
From loves contentful duties. A distressed
Gentle woman housekeeping for strangers;
Later, companion to a droll recluse
Clergyman brother in rough-pastured Wexford,
She lived for all she was worth to be of use.
She bottle plums, she visited parishioners.
A plain habit of innocence, a faith
Mildly forbearing, made her one of those
Who, we were promised, shall inherit the earth
Now, sunk in one small room of a Rathmines
Old peoples home, helpless, beyond speech
Or movement, yearly deeper she declines
To imbecility my last link with childhood.
The batterys almost done: yet if I press
The button hard some private joke in boyhood
I teased her with there comes upon her face
A glowing of the old, enchanted smile.
So, still alive, she rots. A heart of granite
Would melt at this unmeaning sequel, Lord,
How can this be justified, how can it
Be justified?
Cecil Day
Lewis (27 april
1904 22 mei 1972)
De Engelse
schrijfster en feministe Mary Wollstonecraft
werd geboren in Hoxton (nu Londen) op 27 april 1759. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 april 2009 en ook mijn blog van 27 april 2010.
Uit: Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman
Abodes of horror have
frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras,
conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absorb the
wondering mind. But, formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they
to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to
recall her scattered thoughts!
Surprise, astonishment,
that bordered on distraction, seemed to have suspended her faculties, till,
waking by degrees to a keen sense of anguish, a whirlwind of rage and
indignation roused her torpid pulse.
One recollection with
frightful velocity following another, threatened to fire her brain, and make
her a fit companion for the terrific inhabitants, whose groans and shrieks were
no unsubstantial sounds of
whistling winds, or
startled birds, modulated by a romantic fancy, which amuse while they affright;
but such tones of misery as carry a dreadful certainty directly to the heart.
What effect must they then have produced on one, true to the touch of sympathy,
and tortured by maternal
apprehension!
Her infant's image was
continually floating on Maria's sight, and the first smile of intelligence
remembered, as none but a mother, an unhappy mother, can conceive. She heard
her half speaking half cooing, and felt the little twinkling fingers on her
burning bosom--a bosom bursting with the nutriment for which this cherished
child might now be pining in vain. From a stranger she could indeed receive the
maternal aliment, Maria was grieved at the thought--but who would watch her
with a
mother's tenderness, a
mother's self-denial?
Mary Wollstonecraft (27 april 1759 10 september 1797)
De
Oostenrijkse schrijver Hans Bemmann werd geboren op 27 april 1922 in Groitzsch
nabij Leipzig. Zie ook
mijn blog van 27 april 2009.
Uit: Stein und
Flöte
Aber
er fragte sich auch, wohin man geraten mochte, wenn man an der Verlässlichkeit
seines eigenen Verstandes zu zweifeln begann. Wonach sollte man sich richten,
wenn nirgends eine greifbare Wegmarke den Horizont in messbare Abschnitte
gliederte? Das würde sein, als ritte man ohne Weg und Ziel über die grenzenlose
Steppe, und selbst dort gab es ja noch das ewig kreisende Muster der Gestirne,
das dem Kundigen die Richtung wies, wenn er bereit war, sich den Gesetzen ihrer
Bewegung anzuvertrauen. Was aber, wenn diese Lichtpunkte einmal ihre geregelte
Bahn verlassen sollten? Wer sagt einem, dass sie dies nicht schon längst getan
hatten, ohne dass man es hätte merken können?
Hans
Bemmann (27 april 1922 1 april 2003)
De Amerikaanse
toneelschrijver August Wilson (eig.
Frederick August Kittel) werd geboren op 27 april 1945 in Pittsbugh. Zie
ook alle tags voor
August Wilson op dit blog.
Uit: Fences
Okay, Troy...you're right. I'll take care of
your baby for you...cause...like you say...she's innocent...and you can't visit
the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time.
From right now...this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.
(
)
Don't you think I ever wanted other things?
Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me.
Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I
wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted
someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got
wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants
and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted myself inside
you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out
the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom.
August Wilson (27 april 1945 2 oktober 2005)
Scene uit Fences met Danzel Washington en Viola Davis, Broadway, 2010
De Turkse
prediker, schrijver en dichter Fethullah Gülen werd
geboren in Korucuk, Erzurum, op 27 april 1941 Zie
ook alle tags
voor Fethullah Gülen op dit blog.
Dawn
Comes in Dreams
The spirit wanders through the night
To find a way out
Toward that which it seeks and longs for
Travels with the hope of recovering what is lost
Travels from the reason to the heart
To bereft of power
To distinguish the hopeful
from among the hopeless causes
Theres a cold war between realities and imaginings
Dawn comes in dreams
When everything turns pale in the dead hours of the night
Dawn comes in dreams
Dreams are always vivid
Full of color
There when a man looks deep
Into unfathomed oceans
Beholds the past
The far future and what is near to come
What is old about to be replaced or renewed?
Dawn comes in dreams
When realities are too dark to endure
Dawn comes in dreams
In darkness a man suffers
The extreme of loneliness
When mouths are tight-lipped
As if zip-fastened
He wishes to sprout wings and fly
To the realms beyond and fly
Dawn comes in dreams
When events begin to drive me to give up hope
Dawn comes in dreams
Fethullah
Gülen (Korucuk, 27 april 1941)
De Poolse
schrijver Martin Gray werd
geboren als Mietek Grayewski in Warschauop 27 april 1922. Zie ook alle tags voor Martinn Gray
op dit blog.
Uit: Au Nom de Tous les Miens
Parfois, nous allions vers la Vistule en
suivant les Allées de Jérusalem jusqu'au pont Poniatowski. Nous traversions
les jardins Krasinski. Des Juifs marchandaient entre eux.
Ils me semblaient toujours vêtus des mêmes pardessus noirs, ils étaient
pauvres. Mais je ne savais pas ce qu'était la pauvreté. Je ne savais même pas
vraiment que nous étions juifs. Nous célébrions les grandes fêtes mais nous
avions des catholiques dans notre famille. Nous étions entre les deux religions
et mon père, grand, droit, avec sa main forte, me paraissait être à lui seul le
début du monde. Nous rentrions, je traînais dans l'Ogrod Saski, les derniers
jardins avant la rue Senatorska. Chez nous. Mon père ouvrait la porte : je me
souviens encore d'une odeur douce, des cris de mes deux frères. Ma mère était
là et la table mise. C'était avant ma naissance, bien avant, une époque de beau
temps qui s'acheva avec l'été 1939.
Brusquement, la guerre. Mon père est en uniforme d'officier, il me prend par
les épaules et je me rends compte que je suis presque aussi grand que lui. Nous
laissons ma mère et mes deux frères à la maison et nous partons, tous les deux,
vers la gare. Dans les rues tout est déjà différent : des soldats en groupes,
des camions, les premières queues devant les magasins. Nous marchons côte à
côte sur la chaussée, épaule contre épaule, il ne me tient plus par la main :
je suis un homme. Il m'a crié quelque chose de la fenêtre de son wagon que je
n'ai pas entendu et je me suis retrouvé seul dans la rue. Il me semble que
c'est ce jour-là que nous avons eu le premier bombardement : j'ai regardé les
bombardiers argentés à croix noire qui volaient bas, en formation de trois.
- Rentre ici.
Un policier polonais hurlait dans ma direction depuis un porche où
s'agglutinaient des passants affolés. Je me suis mis à courir dans la
rue déserte : il faut que je rentre chez moi, je n'obéis à personne.
Martin Gray (Warschau, 27 april 1922)
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