19 January 2017

Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of grief is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear.


 Aimé Césaire

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is so evocative and haunting. I had never heard of Aime Cesaire, so I googled the name expecting to find a woman. Surprise!

37paddington said...

An excellent quote to read two days before Donald Trump is sworn in as the next president of the US. I have been feeling lost in a Kafka short story, but perhaps I shall read Cesaire instead!

liv said...

I am uncrossing my arms as we speak.

I hope things are getting better for you each day.

am said...

Had not heard of Aimé Césaire either and soon found this, too:

"Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.''

Thank you for bringing this man and his insight to light here.



molly said...

First I had to consult the dictionary for the meaning of "proscenium." If one were a pessimist one might think that we were setting sail tomorrow on a sea of grief with a dancing bear complete with bad hair at the helm...

Snowbrush said...

I should think that the dancing bear is wailing through his dance, and I'm not sure that any of us have any more freedom than such a bear. We're all prisoners as I see us.