After-Orts #61

When you start working, everybody is in your studio-- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas-- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.
     ― John Cage (1912-1992)
 
 
Everything changes but the avant-garde.
     ― Paul Valéry (1871-1945)
 
 

I Am Not I

          by Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958)
          translated by Robert Bly (1926-2021)
 
I am not I.
                   I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.
 
Yo no soy yo.
Soy este
que va a mi lado sin yo verlo,
que, a veces, voy a ver,
y que, a veces olvido.
El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,
el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,
el que pasea por donde no estoy,
el que quedará en pie cuando yo muera.