LA CIFRA
Jorge Luis Borges
La amistad silenciosa de la luna
(cito mal a Virgilio) te acompaña
desde aquella perdida hoy en el tiempo
noche o atardecer en que tus vagos
ojos la descifraron para siempre
en un jardín o un patio que son polvo.
¿Para siempre? Yo sé que alguien, un día,
podrá decirte verdaderamente:
No volverás a ver la clara luna,
Has agotado ya la inalterable
suma de veces que te da el destino.
Inútil abrir todas las ventanas
del mundo. Es tarde. No darás con ella.
Vivimos descubriendo y olvidando
esa dulce costumbre de la noche.
Hay que mirarla bien. Puede ser la última.
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On Journal Writing - The Power of Written Word, A Local Story from Lansing, Michigan
Journal experiment reveals surprising results
Feb. 22, 2014
Growing up in Pakistan, Khalid Ibrahim learned, as all children did, that handwriting was an art form.
He
practiced his letters with a fountain pen. His classroom walls were
covered with posters showing the proper cursive formation of every one.
Poor penmanship could mean a failing grade. “Your writing and handwritten correspondence were your first impression
to the world,” said Ibrahim, an epidemiologist at Michigan State
University. “Content mattered, but what mattered first was how you wrote
it.”
When a friend gave him a journal for Christmas in 2012, he decided to
try an experiment. Instead of keeping the journal to himself, he would
pass it around for a year — first to his own friends and then to their
network of friends in Lansing.
Standing room only
Ibrahim unveiled the finished journal at an event just before
Christmas. People were invited with handwritten invitations. No Facebook
event pages or emailed RSVPs. It was standing room only.
Participants read from their own journal entries. People laughed and cried, applauded and hugged.
The project was so successful Ibrahim now has three more journals circulating in Lansing. The first is similar to the original project, except he is not limiting it to people in Lansing. The second is an anonymous diary of people recovering from substance abuse. The third is being circulated among tattoo artists and is envisioned as an art book. He
wants it to become a movement, of sorts, a community of people
dedicated to returning to that lost art of handwritten communication.
Full Article
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment
Himno
Esta mañana
hay en el aire la increíble fragancia
de las rosas del Paraíso.
En la margen del Eufrates
Adam descubre la frescura del agua.
Una lluvia de oro cae del cielo;
es el amor de Zeuz.
Salta del mar un pez
u un hombre de Agriento recordará
haber sido ese pez.
En la caverna cuyo nombre será Altamira
una mano si cara traza la curva
de un lomo de bisonte.
La lenta mano de Virgilio acaricia
la seda que trajeron
del reino del Emperador Amarillo
las cavernas y las naves.
El primer ruiseñor canta en Hungría
Jesús ve la moneda del perfil de César
Pitágoras revela a sus griegos
que la forma del tiempo es la del círculo.
En una isla del Océano
los lebreles de plata persiguen a los ciervos de oro.
En un yunque forjan la espada
que será de Sigurd.
Whitman canta en Manhanttan.
Homero nace en siete ciudades.
Una doncella acaba de apresar
al unicornio blanco.
Todo el pasado vuelve como una antigua ola
y esas antiguas cosas recurren
porque una mujer te ha besado
JORGE LUIS BORGES
Borges (1899-1986) es uno de los escritores más importantes del siglo
XX, no solamente a nivel nacional en Argentina, su país de origen, sino
mundialmente. Su obra incluye cuentos, ensayos y poemas. Sus ideas
políticas fueron muy polémicas, lo cual se cree que conspiró en contra
de que obtuviese el Premio Nobel de Literatura. De todos modos cosechó
numerosos premios en el mundo, como el Cervantes en España.
