I Have a Love Affair

    Xu Zhimo

    I have a love affair–

    I love stars in the sky;

    I love their sparkle:

    No such a miracle in the world.

    At cold dusk in late winter,

    In the morning or deep loneliness,

    At sea, on the summit after storm–

    There is ever one, thousands of stars!

    An intimate wild flower at creek,

    A joyful child in the high building,

    A traveler’s lamplight and compass: –

    The glittering spirits beyond distance!

    I have a broken soul,

    Like a pile of broken crystals,

    Scattered over the withered grass of moor–

    Sipping up your temporary love.

    The passion and tenderness of lifetime,

    I ever tasted, I ever stood for;

    Chirping of autumn cricket under the stair,

    Sometimes makes me sad in tears.

    I bare my free heart,

    Dedicate love to the stars of all over the sky,

    Despite of lifetime, real or unreal,

    The earth, in or out of existence–

    Stars twinkle forever in the heaven!

    Beauty of Words

    The Art of Living

    John Boynton Priestley

    The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way: A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.

    Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God's own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.

    We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.

    A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care for several days. It was not a pleasant place. One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney. As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That's all there was to my experience, just the light of the sun. And yet how beautiful it was--how warming, how sparking, how brilliant! I looked to see whether anyone else relished the sun's golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day and preoccupied with petty and even mean concerns to respond from that experience. It is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life's gifts are precious--but we are too heedless of them.

    Here then is the first pole of life's paradoxical demands on us: never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.

    Hold fast to life – but never too fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.

    This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command ,that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will, be ours .But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely but surely this truth dawns upon us.

    At every stage of life, we sustain losses, and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves as it was, all that we were or dreamed to be.

    生活的艺术

    约翰·博因顿·普里斯特利

    生活的艺术，在于懂得何时应该紧紧抓住，何时应该放弃。因为人生就是充满矛盾的：它要求我们抓住它所赐予的种种礼物不放，即使最终它又让我们将其放弃。古时的犹太教拉比们对这一点是这样说的：人来到世上时紧握着拳头，但死亡时却把手松开了。

    我们无疑应该紧紧抓住我们的人生，因为他十分神奇，充满了一种美——这美从上帝创造的大地上处处显现出来。我们知道情况是这样的，但却总是经常在回顾时才明白这一点，此时我们记起那是过去的事，然后突然意识到它已不复存在。

    我们会记起一种已经凋谢的美，一份已经消逝的爱，不过我们会怀着强烈得多的痛苦记起，当美绽放时，我们并未能看到它，当爱呈现时，我们也未能以爱回应。

    最近的一次经历再次教我懂得了这个真理。我因严重的心脏病发作住院，并在监护病房里住了几天。那儿并非一个令人愉快的地方。一天上午，我必须另外做个检查，所需仪器在医院另一头的一栋大楼里，我不得不躺在轮床上让人推过院子。在从病房出去时，阳光照耀到我身上，那就是我所遇到的一切，仅仅是阳光而已。然而它是多么美丽啊——多么温暖，多么明媚，多么灿烂。接着我留意看一看是否还有谁也欣赏着这金色的阳光，可每个人都是匆忙地来来往往，眼睛大多盯在地上。然后我记起，自己先前对于每个光辉的日子不也经常无动于衷吗，而对于琐碎的甚至是卑微的小事不也过分操心吗，哪能从那一经历中产生反应呢。此种情况的确就像那一经历本身一样太平常了：人生的礼物是珍贵的，但我们却太不把它们放在眼里。

    所以，人生充满矛盾的要求的第一极便是：别太过忙碌了，以致都无法感受到人生多么神奇、多么令人敬畏。在每个黎明到来前务必谦恭一些。拥抱每一小时，抓住珍贵的每一分钟。

    牢牢抓住人生——但千万别抓得太紧，以免到时放不开手。这是人生硬币的第二面，是人生矛盾与第一极相对的另一极。我们必须接受自己的损失并学会如何放手。

    这并不是一个容易明白的教训，尤其是当我们年轻的时候，以为世界会听从我们的要求，以为我们的生命充满活力与热情，无论我们渴望得到什么都能够得到，不，都一定能得到。之后随着人生的继续我们得以面对现实，缓慢而切实地懂得了这一真理。

    在人生的每个阶段我们都要承受损失，并在这一过程中成长。我们只是在脱离母体并失去其保护时，才开始独立生活。我们从一所学校进入另一所学校，然后离开父母，离开小时候的家。我们结婚生子，之后又不得不接受孩子们的离开。我们面对父母与配偶的死亡，面对逐渐或较快丧失的力量。最终，正如松开和紧握的手这一寓言所暗示的，我们必须面对自己不可避免的死亡，实际上将放弃自我——将我们过去拥有的或梦想拥有的一切放弃。