 What? |  Please, hear... |
Today was a beautiful sunny day here in the middle of Europe. I was in the garden, laying on a deck-chair, sunbathing. Doing “nothing” this way needs some courage and it needs some practice too :-) Try it on you own (in the middle of working day) and you will see. I had my new Google Nexus 7 with me, to test this my little toy, for the fist time, outside the house. And the result is this post.
I found this beautiful poem named “Please Hear What I'm Not Saying”. You are probably familiar with it. I have known it for years, actually this poem was the fist poem I had ever sent to a girl (RF). This poem is worth listening. I mean listening several times (you can download the mp3 of it down) I think that the meaning of this poem is deep and significant for us now more than ever before, even though it is from 1966 (the year of my birthday – just coincidence ;-) )
I was not able to memorize this poem, so I will not recite it by heart myself like the May or Rumi. I found a much better presentation on YouTube – see details here if you want.
You can find more about the poem itself here
I found this beautiful poem named “Please Hear What I'm Not Saying”. You are probably familiar with it. I have known it for years, actually this poem was the fist poem I had ever sent to a girl (RF). This poem is worth listening. I mean listening several times (you can download the mp3 of it down) I think that the meaning of this poem is deep and significant for us now more than ever before, even though it is from 1966 (the year of my birthday – just coincidence ;-) )
I was not able to memorize this poem, so I will not recite it by heart myself like the May or Rumi. I found a much better presentation on YouTube – see details here if you want.
You can find more about the poem itself here
| please_hear.mp3 |
The transcript:
Please Hear What I'm Not Saying
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.
I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!
With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.
Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.
Charles C. Finn
September 1966
P.S. The listening is crucial for language learning. It goes without saying (meaning=obvious). But important is also what you are listening (for your life). Download the MP3, lay yourself in the garden and listen. Let the sun shine on your body, let English penetrate your being. The learning happens, let it happen.
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