#leon felipe

¿Qué pena si este camino fuera de muchísimas leguas

y siempre se repitieran

los mismos pueblos, las mismas ventas,

los mismos rebaños, las mismas recuas!

¡Qué pena si esta vida nuestra tuviera

-esta vida nuestra-

los mismos hombres, las mismas guerras,

los mismos tiranos, las mismas cadenas,

los mismos farsantes, las mismas sectas

¡y los mismos, los mismos poetas!

Así es mi vida,

piedra,

como tú. Como tú,

piedra pequeña;

como tú,

piedra ligera;

como tú,

canto que ruedas

por las calzadas

y por las veredas;

como tú,

guijarro humilde de las carreteras;

como tú,

que en días de tormenta

te hundes

en el cieno de la tierra

y luego

centelleas

bajo los cascos

y bajo las ruedas;

como tú, que no has servido

para ser ni piedra

de una lonja,

ni piedra de una audiencia,

ni piedra de un palacio,

ni piedra de una iglesia;

como tú,

piedra aventurera;

como tú,

que tal vez estás hecha

sólo para una honda,

piedra pequeña

y

ligera...

Confidence is not the swagger or certainty with which we convey what we know. It is the fidelity with which we listen to and relate to the irreducible foundation of all life. For there is a difference between how we carry what we know and how we know what we know.

Leon Felipe was a Spanish poet and friend of the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Their personalities couldn’t have been more different. Pablo was outgoing and uninhibited, exuding his curiosity and care into everything. Leon was more introspective and hesitant around others. While the shy poet admired the soaring presence of his friend, he knew he could never approach life that way.

In Felipe’s poem, “The Great Diver,” dedicated to Neruda, he softly declares, and I paraphrase, “I am not the great diver that you are. I tremble at the light on the spider’s web and don’t know what to say.” Both are confident, that is, faithful, to the foundational reality they each experience. Both are beautiful and true. Each is a different instrument playing the music they know in their soul.

We do not have to choose one way to be thorough and clear. There are many instruments to convey music, from a two-string Erhu played in a field in ancient China to a brass trombone played in an orchestra. Likewise, there are a thousand moods by which to convey the fundamental truth of life. Our confidence comes from our direct, experience of this fundamental truth, not the mood of how we convey it. So, don’t doubt what you know to be true because you stammer or go quiet. A quivering reed knows the rain as fully as the stone. And fail is not a word in the language of Source, only fidelity.

Digo tan sólo lo que he visto.

Y he visto:

que la cuna del hombre la mecen con cuentos,

que los gritos de angustia del hombre los ahogan con cuentos,

que el llanto del hombre lo taponan con cuentos,

que los huesos del hombre los entierran con cuentos,

y que el miedo del hombre…