Homage to the Gift of Life

I'm thinking of our family friend Liz, who's in hospice right now, with cancer that is spreading unstoppably, and which will take her life soon.

Liz isn't interested in moroseness and grief, but in life and joy. She's a religious woman with a sense of God that gives her strength and peace. She values family, friendship, love and humour. And good literature and travel, and living to one's fullest (and sharing tales with loved ones).

But I still feel Time's passing, and its ephemeral pleasures and pains, and for a while have steered clear from writing. At first I felt depressed, when we heard the news, and then I felt silent. And so I avoided writing some more. And then I understood that Liz didn't want life to fall silent for a moment for her, but I felt guilty writing and finding pleasure in reliving good moments. But now I don't any more. But I want to pay homage first to her, and in a small, small, small, tiny way, these two poems are a moment of recognition of Life's giving and taking this year.

They're both by Sergei Esenin. The second one, shared in both Russian and English since I love the sound in Russian, is his last poem. And although its background is tragic, and both poems have sad elements to them, that's not what I'm thinking of as I read it and place it here today...

1.
No regret I feel, no pain, no sorrow,
Blossom blows away, a song is sung.
Overcome by autumn gold, tomorrow
I myself shall be no longer young.

You'll not throb, heart, as before, but tremble,
Feeling chills that you have not yet known.
In bare feet you shall no more be tempted
Through the birch-print countryside to roam.

Roving spirit, ever now less often
Do you rouse a flame upon my lips.
Freshness I have lost, keen looks forgotten,
Feelings running at full flood I miss.

I'm austerer now in my desiring.
Life, were you real, or of fancy born?
It's as if in spring I've been out riding
On a pink horse in the vibrant dawn.

In this world of ours we all are mortal,
Copper leaves from maples gently slide…
Ever blest was I to be accorded
Time for blossoming before I died.

2.
До свиданья, друг мой, до свиданья.
Милый мой, ты у меня в груди.
Предназначенное расставанье
Обещает встречу впереди.

До свиданья, друг мой, без руки, без слова,
Не грусти и не печаль бровей,
-В этой жизни умирать не ново,
Но и жить, конечно, не новей.

Good-bye, my friend, good-bye.
My dear one, you are in my breast.
This predestined parting
Promises a meeting ahead.

Good-bye, my friend, without hand, without word,
No sorrow and no sadness in the brow,
-In this life, dying is nothing new,
But living, of course, isn't novel either.

***

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.” ~ Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)