On a fateful day, an unlucky time
July 5, 2023Improvisation
July 5, 2023O had I known that thus it happens…
O had I known that thus it happens,
When first I started, that at will
Your lines with blood in them destroy you,
Roll up into your throat and kill,
My answer to this kind of joking
Had been a most decisive ‘no’.
So distant was the start, so timid
The first approach-what could one know?
But older age is Rome, demanding
From actors not a gaudy blend
Of props and reading, but in earnest
A tragedy, with tragic end.
A slave is sent to the arena
When feeling has produced a line.
Tnen breathing soil and fate take over
And art has done and must resign.
Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. He is best known for his epic novel "Doctor Zhivago," which explores the life of a poet during the Russian Revolution and the Soviet era. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, but was forced to decline the award due to pressure from the Soviet government. Some of his other notable works include the poetry collections "My Sister, Life" and "Themes and Variations," as well as the plays "Aerial Ways" and "The Blind Beauty."