Lähtevät - Saapuvat - Palaavat

Onnellinen se, joka pääsee lähtemään, joka

välttää pimeän, kylmän, tavanomaisen;

menee pois työn ulottuvilta, arjen

tavoittamattomiin, pois vaatimusten ja suoritusten

noidankehästä.

Onnellinen on se ihminen.

Onnellinen se, joka saapuu jonnekin, laskeutuu,

pysähtyy, nousee maihin,

kävelee iloisesti yllättyneenä, hämmästyksestä

huudahdellen, sydän iloa tulvillaan,

untuvikkona, vastatulleena, perille päässeenä.

Onnellinen se ihminen.

Onnellinen se, joka palaa takaisin, joka ei ole unohtanut,

joka löytää tutut kasvot ja iloitsee. Onnellinen se,

joka on antanut anteeksi ja oppinut ymmärtämään.

Onnellinen se ihminen, joka palaa.

Kaija Pispa

In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets.

Cynthia Rylant

Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground

From bristly foliage
you fell
complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany,
as perfect
as a violin newly
born of the treetops,
that falling
offers its sealed-in gifts,
the hidden sweetness
that grew in secret
amid birds and leaves,
a model of form,
kin to wood and flour,
an oval instrument
that holds within it
intact delight, an edible rose.

In the heights you abandoned
the sea-urchin burr
that parted its spines
in the light of the chestnut tree;
through that slit
you glimpsed the world,
birds
bursting with syllables,
starry
dew
below,
the heads of boys
and girls,
grasses stirring restlessly,
smoke rising, rising.

You made your decision,
chestnut, and leaped to earth,
burnished and ready,
firm and smooth
as the small breasts
of the islands of America.

You fell,
you struck
the ground,
but
nothing happened,
the grass
still stirred, the old
chestnut sighed with the mouths
of a forest of trees,
a red leaf of autumn fell,
resolutely, the hours marched on
across the earth.

Because you are
only
a seed,
chestnut tree, autumn, earth,
water, heights, silence
prepared the germ,
the floury density,
the maternal eyelids
that buried will again
open toward the heights
the simple majesty of foliage,
the dark damp plan
of new roots,
the ancient but new dimensions
of another chestnut tree in the earth. 

Pablo Neruda

Aino Venna - NATAS E MANTEIGA