cover of book, stray birds R.Tagore (1916)
 


CHAPTER ONE - Rabindranath Tagore
WEEK FOUR. conversation by clair and laurence

 

3

 

It is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom. Tagore.

~  ~  ~


I guess if you believe it to be a wonderful way of saying - no beauty without heartache - it leaves me wondering why that is?

laurence

i guess when something exists, in this case beauty, there is inevitably something available to die?  but also, as you say, does beauty always die?...even in death?

for me this sentence by tagore, implies that it is the hurting or taking...the using up of the planet earth which keeps us, in someway, happy.  stray birds, the book where this line was taken, was written in 1916... an early premonition of the consumerist catastrophy we find ourselves and the beautiful earth in now?

clair

So do you think human's have a natural proclivity towards consuming everything in their path, need it or not?

L

i think some people and some cultures, in later years
c

The current fear is everywhere that the earth will at some point not be able to withstand the amount of human-made tears thrown at it. However I think there is a positve aspect in Tagore's line in that the sense and sound of it is cyclical, and I don't see the idea that the cycle will become out of kilter in the line itself.

Incidently I love the way the line feels like a shoot pushing its way through the ground until the final word, bloom.

L

nice :)  

everything is indeed cyclical... as is life and death.   things can go through ememse change, for 'good' or 'bad' and still be deemed cyclical. so although there feels truth in what you are saying, what does it mean?

c

What I am saying is the line itself doesn't forecast doom, rather sustainability. I was on the tube yesterday and there was a Keats poem which seemed to go one step further....

L

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.  
Keats

there is a tin can blowing in the wind outside

it is annoying and beautiful
it is blowing up and down the street like a child clattering along on his old rusty bike
never too tired to get into bed and head home
c