ADSactly Poetry: Secrets of the Crags
Greetings, friends of @ADSactly. I want to share with you a selection of my own photographs taken on trips to one of the most beautiful and wonderful areas of Sucre State (Venezuela), Mochima Bay, particularly on the way to Manare, beautiful and delicious beach. In the course aboard the "peñeros" (name given here to the wooden boats made by fishermen and artisans), who make trips to different points of the bay, I was able to take different aspects of nature that accompanies us along the way. I offer you some photos of the cliffs with their promontories, cavities and surfaces, which constitute a special attraction for contemplation.
As I commented in my previous post about the ruins (see), the rocks, the rock, have been a motive of attraction for contemplation, reflection, poetic or aesthetic creation in general. In western or eastern antiquity we have many and significant manifestations of this. In Chinese or Japanese poetry of Zen or Taoist character we find jewels of that vision. For example, in the Chinese poet and painter Wang Wei (701-761):
In the mountain,
the song of the cicadas
It's sadder in the evenings.
Many times the rock is a precipice, and in it springs beauty, as expressed by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his study of the Greeks in the book The Birth of Tragedy:
The magnificent simplicity of the ancient Greeks
you have to understand it
as the flower of Apollonian culture
that sprouts in the wild abyss.
The Peruvian-Japanese poet José Watanabe (1945-2007), in his haiku influence, wrote in his poem "Imitation of Matsuo Basho":
At the top of the cliff
the goat and his goat.
Below, the abyss.
As we can see, the image of the cliff is associated not only with the rock formation itself, but also with the abyss, the infinite, especially if it is related to the sea. Thus, we have in the most important writer of Italian Romanticism, Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), one of his most beautiful and representative poems: "The Infinite":
Always dear to me was this barren hill
and this weed that from so much
of the last horizon the view impedes.
But seated, and contemplating, endless
spaces far away, and superhuman
silences and his deepest calm,
fixed in my thought. And little fault
so the heart won't be afraid. And when the wind
I hear whispering among those branches, I that one
infinite silence to this voice
I go comparing: and the memory of the eternal comes to me
and the dead seasons, and the present,
alive and rumorous. So in this
immensity is overwhelming my thought;
and the shipwreck is sweet to me in this sea.
In that line of poetic elaboration, I have added here a small poem composed specially for the photographs that I share with you. It is a poem that, influenced by the tradition of brief poetry (haiku), shows my perplexed contemplation of these rock formations, which always impress our gaze and spirit.
The photos are my own and were taken with a non-professional camera, the Kodak EasyShare CD82.
Climb on the rock
the origin
with its vacuums and cracks
its roughness and mutations
Remains in the rock
the mystery
and its indelible face
Bibliographic references
Leorpardi, Giacomo (1978). Complete work (Volume I). Spain: Books Río Nuevo.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1981). The Birth of Tragedy (6th ed.). Spain: Alianza Editorial.
Wang Wei (2004). The empty mountain. Perú: Editorial Fund PUCP.
Watanabe, José (2013). Complete poetry. Spain: Edit Pre-Text.
Author: @josemalavem
Click the coin below to join our Discord Server
)
Beautiful post, @josemalavem
An unusual poetic overview of rocks as a motif in world literature.
I used to collect small rocks when I was little. I was mesmerized at the great variety of shapes, colors, and textures.
We lose that sense of fascination as we grow up (unless we become geologist or poets) :)
We can always find great images and metaphors in rocks, especially in their association with water. Like the rocks, we too carry indelible marks.
I appreciate your reading and comment, @hlezama. That custom of gathering stones (without becoming a collector), especially from the sea and riverbeds, even as an adult I keep it. They have always attracted my attention, as well as shells and snails. That expression of yours seems very wise to me: "Like rocks, we also carry indelible marks".
Greetings.
One of the textures that has always intrigued me is that of the stones. Not only to the touch, to the sight, but also in their smells, because I have discovered that stones have smells, breathe, like people. Likewise, the cliffs amaze me, paralyze me, fill me with anxiety. Perhaps my fear of heights makes me feel in front of the rock as if I were in front of a precipice, an abyss. I know these rocks, and what each crack can tell the sea. A sea that comes and goes, bathing them, bumping into them, without realizing that deep down it has a heart of stone. Beautiful photos and beautiful texts, @josemalavem.
I'm grateful your beautiful comment, @nancybriti. Perhaps the stone, like Rubén Darío's snail, is a heart. And it is possible that, besides speaking to us, they will also listen to us.
The heights of hills and cliffs will always provoke in us vertigo, which is probably inherent to the human condition.
Greetings.
@josemalavem, Sometimes these rocks recites great stories and mysterious aspects of life. Stay blessed.
Posted using Partiko Android
That's right, @chireerocks. All of nature, and particularly the rocks and mountains, speak to us, even if sometimes we don't pay attention to them. Thank you.
Welcome and that's true.
Posted using Partiko Android
I savor these posts of yours @josemalavem. I admit I skim a lot of posts, but yours make me want to slow way down and experience. Your photos are stunning, the words - yours and others' - very moving. This one has made me realize that humans have always sought the infinite and eternal. Very very nice. Thank you.