He Belonged in a Morgue
He looked like he belonged in a morgue
three days ago, an old neighbor of mind.
Then a young woman moved in with him.
They were up until 3:00 AM.
A week later he looked better.
Maybe there are some clues here
to help enliven you?
At times, love quite literally can give life (outer body). At all times though, it can nourish the life force (inner soul). This Hafiz poem illustrates that, look at what love has done for the man who was weak (physically or spiritually, we do not know which one he meant).
He looked like he belonged in a morgue
three days ago, an old neighbor of mind.
Then a young woman moved in with him.
They were up until 3:00 AM.
A week later he looked better.
Maybe there are some clues here
to help enliven you?
At times, love quite literally can give life (outer body). At all times though, it can nourish the life force (inner soul). This Hafiz poem illustrates that, look at what love has done for the man who was weak (physically or spiritually, we do not know which one he meant).
As mentioned, yesterday, I delayed my Les Miz blog, but I find it to relevant here. Valjean's life was reinvented and reaffirmed when he promised Fantine to love her daughter, to protect her, and to "raise her to the Light". It was only when she decided to wed Marius, did he feel his task was done and he could depart this world. Of course, in loving someone fully, we do get a glimpse of Heaven before we leave to go there, or in the spoken words of the wonderful play itself "To love another person is to see the face of God."
What follows is a wonderful passage from Les Miserables, that then relates to a story in one of Gibran's letters.
“I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes, but the stars through his soul. Let us say in passing, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact - on this earth where nothing is complete - one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of the presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love; to see the thought if not the face; to know that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to imagine the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; and to believe that you can soar; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, to think that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your infirmity increases; to become in darkness, and by reason of darkness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few joys can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves -say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty. To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. And then it seemed to him that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it." ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
In Gibran's September 1, 1918 letter he relates a story to Mary about the time he saw blind sparrows in the Boston Public Gardens: "I saw a sparrow feed a blind sparrow in Boston - in the Public Gardens about twelve years ago. I used to go there often. I'd buy a quarter pound or half pound of enriched wheat that the Syrians prepare to feed the doves and the sparrows. One day they were feeding all around me and I noticed that one sparrow was flying off with his grain every time, instead of swallowing it down and waiting for more, as all the others did. So I watched him. He flew off about thirty feet into the grass to another sparrow who was sitting there. The waiting sparrow would, when he heard my sparrow, lift his head - with unseeing eyes and my sparrow would put the grain into his mouth and fly back for more. Carefully I moved by degrees over until I was within four or five feet of the sitting bird. He was an adult - with full wings. I waited until the all flew away. The seeing sparrow went close the blind one and shoved against his shoulder, as if he were nudging him, and then they rose with the rest. It was the most moving thing I have ever seen among animals."
“I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes, but the stars through his soul. Let us say in passing, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact - on this earth where nothing is complete - one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of the presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love; to see the thought if not the face; to know that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to imagine the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; and to believe that you can soar; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, to think that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your infirmity increases; to become in darkness, and by reason of darkness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few joys can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves -say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty. To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. And then it seemed to him that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it." ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
In Gibran's September 1, 1918 letter he relates a story to Mary about the time he saw blind sparrows in the Boston Public Gardens: "I saw a sparrow feed a blind sparrow in Boston - in the Public Gardens about twelve years ago. I used to go there often. I'd buy a quarter pound or half pound of enriched wheat that the Syrians prepare to feed the doves and the sparrows. One day they were feeding all around me and I noticed that one sparrow was flying off with his grain every time, instead of swallowing it down and waiting for more, as all the others did. So I watched him. He flew off about thirty feet into the grass to another sparrow who was sitting there. The waiting sparrow would, when he heard my sparrow, lift his head - with unseeing eyes and my sparrow would put the grain into his mouth and fly back for more. Carefully I moved by degrees over until I was within four or five feet of the sitting bird. He was an adult - with full wings. I waited until the all flew away. The seeing sparrow went close the blind one and shoved against his shoulder, as if he were nudging him, and then they rose with the rest. It was the most moving thing I have ever seen among animals."
Sparrows in Kowloon Park, Hong Kong
January 2008
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