{"id":10386,"date":"2010-12-17T15:50:24","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T20:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/?p=10386"},"modified":"2010-12-17T15:54:07","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T20:54:07","slug":"t-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/?p=10386","title":{"rendered":"T & T2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\"Zagreb2010T&Tenroute\"<\/p>\n

Questions Of Travel<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bishop<\/em><\/a><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
\nhurry too rapidly down to the sea,
\nand the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
\nmakes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
\nturning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
\n–For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
\naren’t waterfalls yet,
\nin a quick age or so, as ages go here,
\nthey probably will be.
\nBut if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
\nthe mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
\nslime-hung and barnacled.<\/p>\n

Think of the long trip home.
\nShould we have stayed at home and thought of here?
\nWhere should we be today?
\nIs it right to be watching strangers in a play
\nin this strangest of theatres?
\nWhat childishness is it that while there’s a breath of life
\nin our bodies, we are determined to rush
\nto see the sun the other way around?
\nThe tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
\nTo stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
\ninexplicable and impenetrable,
\nat any view,
\ninstantly seen and always, always delightful?
\nOh, must we dream our dreams
\nand have them, too?
\nAnd have we room
\nfor one more folded sunset, still quite warm?<\/p>\n

But surely it would have been a pity
\nnot to have seen the trees along this road,
\nreally exaggerated in their beauty,
\nnot to have seen them gesturing
\nlike noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
\n–Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
\nthe sad, two-noted, wooden tune
\nof disparate wooden clogs
\ncarelessly clacking over
\na grease-stained filling-station floor.
\n(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
\nEach pair there would have identical pitch.)
\n–A pity not to have heard
\nthe other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
\nwho sings above the broken gasoline pump
\nin a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
\nthree towers, five silver crosses.
\n–Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
\nblurr’dly and inconclusively,
\non what connection can exist for centuries
\nbetween the crudest wooden footwear
\nand, careful and finicky,
\nthe whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
\nand, careful and finicky,
\nthe whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
\n–Never to have studied history in
\nthe weak calligraphy of songbirds’ cages.
\n–And never to have had to listen to rain
\nso much like politicians’ speeches:
\ntwo hours of unrelenting oratory
\nand then a sudden golden silence
\nin which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:<\/p>\n

“Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
\n<\/em>to imagined places, not just stay at home?
\n<\/em>Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
\n<\/em>about just sitting quietly in one’s room?
\n<\/em>Continent, city, country, society:
\n<\/em>the choice is never wide and never free.
\n<\/em>And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
\n<\/em>wherever that may be?<\/em>“<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Questions Of Travel Elizabeth Bishop There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams hurry too rapidly down to the sea, and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. –For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, aren’t waterfalls yet, in a quick age or so, as ages go here, they probably will be. But if the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-2Hw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10386"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10389,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386\/revisions\/10389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}