Saddest Poem
By Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
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No Friday Five.
1. What, if any, episodes of your fandom celebrate a specific religious holiday?
None. It's a big reason why Star Trek is my fandom, though I think they're being entirely unrealistic about the sudden death of all religion in less than 300 years. The religious holidays that have gotten the most air time on Trek have been alien; my favorites are Bajoran, though I'm not sure Peldor Joi ("Fascination") counts as religious as opposed to cultural. It's funny, because while I would cry my eyes out if Trek did a Christmas party episode, I would like some indication somewhere that Jews are not extinct in the 23rd century. If Chakotay can have a medicine bundle to use off-duty, can't someone have a mezuzah?
2. If you have knowledge/experience with non-Judeo/Christian religions, does your fandom realistically depict non-Judeo/Christian religions?
Trek tends to make all religion and most spirituality look incredibly stupid, which bugs me; the recent Enterprise episode with the followers of the sphere-builders is a perfect example. Yes, people do moronic things in the name of religion and I like seeing that portrayed on television, but it doesn't mean that belief, itself, makes one an idiot or a deluded fanatic. Deep Space Nine did a far more complex job dealing with spirituality than any of the other series, though they had their moments of idiocy as well (the Grand Nagus converted by the Prophets...never mind, I don't want to remember this). They weren't terrible with Chakotay and Native American spirituality though it was highly simplistic and in "Tattoo" he largely disavowed the belief system anyway, saying it was just tradition for him.
3. Which of your fandom’s characters profess a religion?
Worf, Kira and Chakotay are the three whose religious beliefs got the most air time, though many of the aliens have dealt in some way with spirituality and afterlife (one of the few things Voyager got right with Neelix). Klingon religious and spiritual life was a complicated mess, with their messiah's clone returning and Worf being at the center of the controversy about the legitimacy of Kahless...and while my beloved Kai Winn certainly professed a religion, she was deliberately disobedient to the Prophets. Kirk, of course, met God in The Final Frontier and tried to kill him, but then, he is Kirok!
4. Do your fandom’s characters act in ways that seem at odds with their professed religions?
Well, yes, because the point of most episodes involving religion is usually to show how stupid religion is. Thus one gets things like Dukat professing love for the Pah-wraiths while living an entirely self-interested, immoral life and manipulating hundreds of Bajorans in their name, or the aforementioned Enterprise episode with genocide going on in the name of a higher power.
5. What fanfic deals well with the characters' religions?
I remember once reading a Sisko story dealing with his past-tense alter ego Benny and the preacher who wears the face of his father, which had African-American Baptist Christianity woven seamlessly throughout it in a very moving way, and now I can't find it! Does this ring a bell with anyone? In general I haven't read much fic dealing with religion because two of my favorite characters (Kirk, Janeway) are avowed atheists and two of the others (Kira, Chakotay) had their beliefs established in such a way on the show that fan writers tended just to fall back on quoting things they'd said in canon about their (non-traditional for most fan writers) beliefs.
Am off to visit with
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