Aphorisms

Despair, it comes in many colours, many shapes,
And only one taste.

                          *****

I slept in a blue lake, far form the world,
before waking up in a singing day.

                          *****

Loneliness, it wears either like a coat
Too big, or too tight.

                          *****

Loneliness : a frightened heart
Splintering to silent screams.


                          ******

Shyly, the birds in your ebony eyes
Hovered by my blue heart.

                          *****

They talked, trying to mend bleeding wounds,
With silence a vulture, watching them.

                          *****

He wore his boredom
Like a crown of thorns.

                          *****

These are from a collection of  aphorisms I wrote between February and April of 1981, when I was an undergraduate student at TCU, in Fort Worth, Texas, the last year I was there before graduating in the spring of 1981, and moving on to a Master's degree in Spanish at UT in Austin, Texas. I was 23 when I wrote these. My interest in aphorisms stems from a collection I read in Flemish when I was 17, "Zwervende Vogels", "Stray Birds" by the formidable Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. It left a lasting impression on my psyche and heart, as did Kahlil Gibrans' collection "Sand and Foam " I read two years later.

Idir ou le courage d'aimer

Une amie francaise m'introduit depuis beaucoup d'annees  a la musique du monde. Ainsi, elle m'a fait connaitre un musicien algerien avec l'ame d'un poete et le coeur d'un ange. Inspiree par les chansons qu'elle m'avait envoye en cassette, comme "Tizi Ouzou", j'ai vu et ecoutee un de ses concerts sur l' internet. Son amour pour son pays et la region algerienne de la Kabylie etait une experience profonde. Sa voix tient une chaleur et sagesse qui touchaient une part de mon ame blessee de 37 ans de depaysage et pertes de famille tragiques. Je suis flamande de naissance et la seule experience que j'ai de la culture de l'Afrique du Nord est a travers des amities et un desir d'etudier la culture et l'histoire. Mais ecoutant la voix d'Idir et ses explications des chansons, je me sentais acceptee dans la chaleur des mesages de ses mots et de la musique.  J'aimais comme il parlait du coeur qui nous unit dans le mystere des tragedies humaines. C'etait hypnotique de sentir les blessures de ma vie sentir se guerir un peu simplement en ecoutant les chansons super belles de cet homme gentil et intelligent. Je me sentais chez moi, pas seule et isolee ,pour une heure et demie, comme une enfant epuisee ayant finalement retrouvee sa maison sur le chemin trouble. Idir est musicien, poete, et emissaire de paix dans un monde qui risque se perdre l'ame dans la haine. Mon coeur buvait sa musique et ses mots comme une fleur mourante de manque d'eau. Natacha Atlas dans sa rendition super belle de "Mon Amie La Rose ( est morte ce matin ), chante " ... et moi, j'ai besoin d'espoir sinon je n'existe pas "... J'etais la rose, qui a retrouvee un peu de cet espoir necessaire,  ecoutant la musique el l'amour d'un musicien et poete de la region Kabylie de L'Algerie, un homme nomme Idir.                                                                    

Grito (Scream)

Vivimos enamorados
No de nuestros amores
sino de anhelos oscuros
que como pajaros negros
enloquecen nuestros suenos.

Vivimos en un tiempo de locura,
Dulce y amargada,
que embriaga nuestros corazones
con desesperacion y coraje.

Si, vivimos bajo un cielo borracho
Buscando una esperanza en la divina
y no tan divina locura.

Trudi Ralston
February 2nd, 1982/ August 18th, 2013.

I wrote this poem initially my second semester in graduate school in Austin, Texas, where I had started my master's degree in Spanish and Latin American literature.The somber tone of the poem as to the existential deterioration of the human condition seems as relevant now as it felt to me 31 years ago. I revised and tightened its length, but changed none of its content or mood.

Blue Rain

After a long bout of hot, sunny days, it started to rain two days ago, bringing in the clouds, humidity and cooler temperatures. The light changes, and that is why I am glad we have an abundance of brightly colored flowers, like our fuchsia and our large Morning Glory. The Morning Glory come mostly in 5 inches across white blooms with a hint of pale blue in a star pattern across their lovely large trumpets. One stood out this morning, a 5 inch Morning Glory of an almost neon lavender blue hue, that just took my breath away. Somehow, the sight of this gorgeous flower amid  eight white same sized Morning Glory triggered a melancholic memory. The reading in middle school of Paul Verlaine's poem " Il pleut sur mon coeur  comme il pleut sur les toits". The poem made me very sad when I read it the firs time at age 14, and now, all these years later, I am reminded of this same poem and it makes me equally sad. At the same age I read for the first time Arthur Rimbaud's " Le dormeur du val", written in 1870. It is an enchanting poem about a young dead soldier shot in an open field. Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud were stormy lovers around that time, but of course we were not told that in our Catholic girl school. Perhaps intuitively I perceived both these poets had deep knowledge of the depths of despair love can experience, because those two poems haunt me to this day. So, here I am, at 56, looking at my electric blue Morning Glory, looking both special and lost among its white robed fellow flowers, and the melancholy of the 14 year old school girl comes back, like a wound that never healed properly. Perhaps the fact that I feel my isolation more acutely these last weeks as I wonder what happened to a friend of mine who seems to have dropped off the planet, adds to the jolt I felt. Instead of Marcel Proust's " A la recherche du Temps Perdu", with my soul and heart it seems to be " A la Recherche du Cle Perdu", le cle qui me permetterait de retrouver le chemin de retour aux amities perdues. Enfin, voila mon histoire de perte totale. C'est beau, quand -meme, les fleurs. Got to love those gorgeous Morning Glory, especially that blue one. My, my, what a beauty on a rainy, humid day. " Il y a deux trous rouges au cote droit."

The Tiger and The Grasshopper

Once in a blue moon, a friend comes along who knows just what it takes to make our heart and spirit feel free and at ease. As luck would have it, this friend now lives on the other side of the planet, far beyond the big blue sea, if I think of it in fairy tale terms. Somehow, my friend D. reminds me of a benevolent tiger, and I always thought of myself as a grasshopper, a little over exuberant, always trying  my friend's patience. I have a fiery disposition, with a lot of energy and passions, and he had this ability to just absorb it all, making me feel accepted just the way my Flemish- French blood was put together. For years we lost touch, many years, like close to thirty. Then modern technology allowed us to communicate easily and we do, for more than a year now. The fondness I had for him then easily returned, and now I find myself thinking of him again as the benevolent tiger, very far away, but close to my spirit. And I am the eager, slightly annoying grasshopper, trying hard to keep up with the tiger's larger stride. I haven't heard from my friend in some time now, and it makes me wonder what is happening with him. Distance is as distance does, and I can only hope he is all right. When I do hear from him again, I will tell him that he is unique in how he affected me to inspire peace and dignity to my being whenever I heard of him. It is an affection that transcends time, space and circumstance. A big brother, a friend, a fellow graduate student at one time, always gracious, kind, tolerant. I miss him. I have no way of doing anything about it, but wait, and hope the tiger will check in with me and we will go walking again across the e- highway, sharing tales of wonder with ease and comfort. Ubi est amicus meus?

Pajaro Rojo, Herida Azul

Que cosa fragil pueda ser la amistad. A veces me parece como hecha de alas invisibles y por eso su vuelo puede sufrir dano que toma tiempo de averiguar. Tengo el corazon pesado hoy, porque no se si va sobrevivir una amistad que me llena de paz y esperanza, y no se si es cuestion de tiempo y paciencia, o si es realmente una ruptura en la fabrica de una amistad que yo crei verdadera y sincera. Quizas es simplemente una pausa breve en el ritmo del verano. "There ain't no cure for the summertime blues"? Me imagino que es possible. Estaba pensando en el pajaro que simboliza la felicidad, el pajaro azul, "The Blue Bird of Happiness". Pero por el momento, me parece mas el pajaro rojo, "The Red Bird of Sorrow", el pajaro rojo del dolor. Pajaro Rojo, Herida Azul. Bleeding red bird, blue wound, instead of blue bird of Happiness, red wound bleeding. It would make a cool painting, something Chagall would have done justice. Some friendships come easy, others are constructed cautiously and then become very comfortable and reassuring, others yet take a lifetime to realize their richness. Some friendships remain elusive in spite of mutual respect and tender care. A testimony to the complexity  of human nature and human relationships. Time heals all wounds. Sure, but time is also a great killer, stalking quietly and efficiently. I am not sure yet which way the dice are going to fall on a friendship that I thought had finally beat the dusts of time. "Ce n'est rien, tu le sais bien. Le temps passe, ce n'est rien"... sings the French chansonnier Julien Clerc in one of my all time favorite songs of his. J'espere qu'il a raison, que quoique ce soit qui trouble l'eau de mon amitie en ce moment passera avec le temps, plutot que le temps l'efface. Cela me rappelle ce que disait mon pere des fois: " joe weren,he, lik ne puyt up nen harte wegel", "you gotta try very hard sometimes, like a wet frog on a sharp gravel road". That made me smile at least. Maybe Mick Jagger will be right, that "Time is on my side, yes it is, time is on my side"... Pajaro Rojo, Herida Azul.

Tu N'existes Pas

Tu n'existes pas, je te dis, tu n'est pas la.
Foutez- moi la paix, ce n'est pas vrai,
Je suis la, moi.

Tu n'existes pas, tu n'existes plus,
Tu n'est personne, je te dis encore,
Tu n'est pas la.

Mais, qui es-tu de me dire tout ca,
Je ne t'ecoute pas, moi.
Je suis la, moi, je suis la.

Ah, peut-tre, peut-etre, tu es la, toi.
Mais tu verras, ce n'est que ton ombre
Qui te parleras, tu n'est pas la, je te dis.

Non, non, j'entends ma voix, mon rire.
Je suis bien la, moi, tu n'est qu'un fantome.
Va t'en, j'ai les yeux bien ouverts maintenant.

Je suis la, moi. Je suis la.

Trudi Ralston.
August 6th, 2013.

I wrote this poem to remind myself that it is possible to move beyond the limitations negative experiences and people can put on us.