Berichten van 22 juli 2016

Dolce far niente

 
Gewitterlandschaft (Nach dem Gewitter) door Otto Modersohn, 1930

Storm and Sunlight

I
In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw,
Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion
Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic
With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap
That echoes crashing thro’ the slumbrous vault.
The whispering woodlands darken: vulture Gloom
Stoops, menacing the skeltering flocks of Light,
Where the gaunt shepherd shakes his gleaming staff
And foots with angry tidings down the slope.
Drip, drip; the rain steals in through soaking thatch
By cob-webbed rafters to the dusty floor.
Drums shatter in the tumult; wrathful Chaos
Points pealing din to the zenith, then resolves
Terror in wonderment with rich collapse.

II
Now from drenched eaves a swallow darts to skim
The crystal stillness of an air unveiled
To tremulous blue. Raise your bowed heads, and let
Your horns adore the sky, ye patient kine!
Haste, flashing brooks! Small, chuckling rills, rejoice!
Be open-eyed for Heaven, ye pools of peace!
Shine, rain-bow hills! Dream on, fair glimpsèd vale
In haze of drifting gold! And all sweet birds,
Sing out your raptures to the radiant leaves!
And ye, close huddling Men, come forth to stand
A moment simple in the gaze of God
That sweeps along your pastures! Breathe his might!
Lift your blind faces to be filled with day,
And share his benediction with the flowers.

 
Siegfried Sassoon (8 september 1886 – 1 september 1967)
St Luke's Church, Matfield. Siegfried Sassoon werd geboren in Matfield.

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Stephen Vincent Benét werd geboren op 22 juli 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Zie ook alle tags voorStephen Vincent Benét op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 22 juli 2010.

Road And Hills

I shall go away
To the brown hills, the quiet ones,
The vast, the mountainous, the rolling,
Sun-fired and drowsy!

My horse snuffs delicately
At the strange wind;
He settles to a swinging trot; his hoofs tramp the dust.
The road winds, straightens,
Slashes a marsh,
Shoulders out a bridge,
Then --
Again the hills.
Unchanged, innumerable,
Bowing huge, round backs;
Holding secret, immense converse:
In gusty voices,
Fruitful, fecund, toiling
Like yoked black oxen.

The clouds pass like great, slow thoughts
And vanish
In the intense blue.

My horse lopes; the saddle creaks and sways.
A thousand glittering spears of sun slant from on high.
The immensity, the spaces,
Are like the spaces
Between star and star.

The hills sleep.
If I put my hand on one,
I would feel the vast heave of its breath.
I would start away before it awakened
And shook the world from its shoulders.
A cicada's cry deepens the hot silence.
The hills open
To show a slope of poppies,
Ardent, noble, heroic,
A flare, a great flame of orange;
Giving sleepy, brittle scent
That stings the lungs.
A creeping wind slips through them like a ferret; they bow and dance,
answering Beauty's voice . . .

The horse whinnies. I dismount
And tie him to the grey worn fence.
I set myself against the javelins of grass and sun;
And climb the rounded breast,
That flows like a sea-wave.
The summit crackles with heat, there is no shelter, no hollow from
the flagellating glare.

I lie down and look at the sky, shading my eyes.
My body becomes strange, the sun takes it and changes it, it does not feel,
it is like the body of another.
The air blazes. The air is diamond.
Small noises move among the grass . . .

Blackly,
A hawk mounts, mounts in the inane
Seeking the star-road,
Seeking the end . . .
But there is no end.

Here, in this light, there is no end. . .

 
Stephen Vincent Benét (22 juli 1898 – 13 maart 1943)

 De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Maria Janitschek (geb. Tölk) werd geboren op 22 juli 1859 in Mödling bij Wenen. Zie ook alle tags voor Maria Janitschek op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 22 juli 2010.

Am Gipfel

Frei ist die Aussicht! Fahle Morgennebel
hat flammend fortgeküßt des Mittags Mund;
vor meinen Blicken glänzen goldne Thale,
und thun mir ihre letzten Rätsel kund.
 
Frei ist die Aussicht! Drüben flattern Kränze
um weiße Marmorurnen .. hier, voll Lust,
verheißungsvoll die roten Lippen regend,
beut mir das Leben seine volle Brust.
 
Ich aber recke meine Arme aus:
in meinen rechten faß ich euch, ihr Toten,
in meinen linken dich, oh quellend Leben! ...

Woher

Tiefblau der Himmel,
hell glänzt der Firn,
da fällt ein Tropfen
auf meine Stirn.

Ich wend mich um,
und spähe, spähe…
nicht Wolken, nicht Menschen
in meiner Nähe.

Du schöner Himmel,
von Glanz umwoben,
sag, weinen denn
die auch dort oben?

Maria Janitschek (22 juli 1859 – 28 april 1927)

Zie voor de schrijvers van de 22e juli ook mijn blog van 22 juli 2015 en ook mijn blog van 2 juli 2011 deel 1 en ook deel 2 en eveneens mijn blog van 22 juli 2012.

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Susan Eloise Hinton werd geboren op 22 juli 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hinton schreef in de jaren 1960 een aantal bekroonde romans voor jongeren. Met haar eerste “The Outsider”, die verscheen in 1967, werd de 19-jarige op slag beroemd en men beschouwde haar meteen als de stem van de jeugd. Maar de druk van de verwachtingen leidde tot een drie jaar durende schrijfblokkade, die zij pas in 1971 overwon met “That Was Then, This Is Now”. In 1975 volgde de roman “Rumble Fish”, die net als The Outsider aan het begin van de jaren '80 als een sjabloon voor films van Francis Ford Coppola diende, waarin veel acteurs van de zogenaamde “Brat Pack generatie” hun carrière begonnen. Matt Dillon speelde in “Rumble Fish” en ook in de filmversie van “Tex” de hoofdrol. In de eerste drie verfilmingen van haar boeken was Hinton ook zelf in een kleine rol te zien. In “The Outsider” speelde zij een verpleegkundige. Voor “Rumble Fish” schreef zij ook het scenario. Voor haar grote verdiensten voor de jeugdliteratuur ontving Hinton in 1988 de eerste Margaret A. Edwards Award van de American Library Association.

Uit: The Outsiders

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman--- he looks tough and I don't--- but I guess my own looks aren't so bad. I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have. My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut. Besides, I look better with long hair.
I had a long walk home and no company, but I usually lone it anyway, for no reason except that I like to watch movies undisturbed so I can get into them and live them with the actors. When I see a movie with someone it's kind of uncomfortable, like having someone read your book over your shoulder. I'm different that way. I mean, my second-oldest brother, Soda, who is sixteen-going-on-seventeen, never cracks a book at all, and my oldest brother, Darrel, who we call Darry, works too long and hard to be interested in a story or drawing a picture, so I'm not like them. And nobody in our gang digs movies  and books the way I do. For a while there, I thought I was the only person in the world that did. So I loned it.
Soda tries to understand, at least, which is more than Darry does. But then, Soda is different from anybody; he understands everything, almost. Like he’s n ever hollering at me all the time the way Darry is, or treating me as if I was six instead of fourteen. I love  Soda more than I've ever loved anyone, even Mom and Dad. He's always happy-go-lucky and grinning, while Darry's hard and firm and rarely grins at all. But then, Darry's gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast. Sodapop'll never grow up at all. I don't know which way's the best. I'll find out one of these days. Anyway, I went on walking home, thinking about the movie, and then suddenly wishing I had some company. Greasers can't walk alone too much or they'll get jumped,“

 
Susan Hinton (Tulsa, 22 juli 1948)