The Song of the Traveller - Jose Rizal

What a beautiful poem, especially for V.

The Song of the Traveler

-Jose Rizal

Like to a leaf that is fallen and withered,

Tossed by the tempest from pole unto pole ;

Thus roams the pilgrim abroad without purpose,

Roams without love, without country or soul.

Following anxiously treacherous fortune,

Fortune which e 'en as he grasps at it flees ;

Vain though the hopes that his yearning is seeking,

Yet does the pilgrim embark on the seas !

Ever impelled by the invisible power,

Destined to roam from the East to the West ;

Oft he remembers the faces of loved ones,

Dreams of the day when he, too, was at rest.

Chance may assign him a tomb on the desert,

Grant him a final asylum of peace ;

Soon by the world and his country forgotten,

God rest his soul when his wanderings cease !

Often the sorrowing pilgrim is envied,

Circling the globe like a sea-gull above ;

Little, ah, little they know what a void

Saddens his soul by the absence of love.

Home may the pilgrim return in the future,

Back to his loved ones his footsteps he bends ;

Naught wìll he find but the snow and the ruins,

Ashes of love and the tomb of his friends,

Pilgrim, begone ! Nor return more hereafter,

Stranger thou art in the land of thy birth ;

Others may sing of their love while rejoicing,

Thou once again must roam o'er the earth.

Pilgrim, begone ! Nor return more hereafter,

Dry are the tears that a while for thee ran ;

Pilgrim, begone ! And forget thine affliction,

Loud laughs the world at the sorrows of man.

Translated by Arthur P.Ferguson

Ramblings..

When you meet people you’ve known for a while, you figure they’d understand what you want. They’d get that you have a need to figure things out with that someone who is so important to you. There is however always that apprehension that you might not be as important to that person. That as always they can turn their back on you and go to sleep.  And no matter how drunk you are, how drunk you want to be, some fantasies do not turn into reality. While life may offer an excuse, it isn’t an excuse valid enough for you to believe. Ever. And no matter how hard you try you simply cannot figure things out. There is a certain restlessness about every thing you do, you think, you try.  And no amount of striving for inner peace helps. I sit here, in a strange room with feet slowly turning cold, and a heart that feels like it beats just because it has to. Not because it wants to. A chronic short fall of emotion, of intelligence, of guts, of everything that makes living worth its while. And try as you might there is nothing that can fill a void caused by a void an emptiness that you have begun to feel has become an inherent part of who you are. Sleep.

Pain

Jim Butcher never ever ceases to stun me. Some of his more profound writing:

"We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.

Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another"

Somebody that I used to know

Ever since I heard this song, its been rotating in my head. I love it. The words are so perfect. They fit. Here goes:

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
I told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kinda sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make it like it never happened and that we were nothing
I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough

No, you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
Guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believin' it was always something that I'd done

But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know-oh-oh

But you didn't have cut me off
Make it like it never happened and that we were nothing (oh)
I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger
and that feels so rough

(oh)

No, you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect you records
And then change your number (oh)
Guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Somebody that I used to know
Somebody (now your just somebody that I used to know)
That I used to know
Somebody that I used to know
Somebody (somebody) (now your just somebody that I used to know)
That I used to know

I used to know
That I used to know
I used to know
Somebody