1.16.2008




Now is the time to give me roses,
not to keep them for my grave to come.
Give them to me while my heart beats,
give them today while my
heart yearns for jubilee.

Now is the time...



— Mzwakhe Mbuli






Check out the previous post's comments for a bit of back story on today's post. Here's a snippet from the exchange between me and the inimitable (and stunningly observant) P:

p - What happened to your poem post? I loved that one, but it appeared on my Google Reader, not on your blog. I wanted to post a response to it...


d:m - Wow! You don't miss a thing.

They are incredibly powerful words. So evocative. I'll re-post. Took it down because I wanted to include a little something about my experience of regret: the sort where I've squandered opportunity to attend to and nurture a couple of important relationships - until it was too late, as they say. (I posted, but then clicked on SAVE POST and took away Mbuli's gorgeous words, figuring I'd get to my part later. How's that for today's tender morsel of irony?). Good on you for calling me on it, albeit unknowingly.

I'm wondering how others experience and use (or not) regret.





:lyric from mbuli's album change is pain; image surroundings

2 comments:

P said...

Oh good. Phew. I really, really love this post - and I'm so sorry I was impatient and rushed you! I want to hear about your experiences...

"My heart yearns for jubilee." A wonderful fragment.

I spent an entire relationship with someone I loved (too ferociously, perhaps) obsessing about our future together instead of being content with the pleasures of the present. I regret that, not because the relationship fell apart, but because it was love and passion and pleasure wasted.

Luisa Perkins said...

Regret and I are not friends; I usually retreat to one of my hidey-holes when she shows up.