I read Rose’s comment following Dr Snyder’s second lecture, saw she had connected to you and so read what you had written. What you were thinking about due to your fighting experience was so intensely real.
I’m miles away in Aotearoa New Zealand where I grew up, but was born late 1944 in London. My father was an NZ soldier who had been in the allied forces in North Africa for 4 years. I’ve always thought about and read about how people face such circumstances.
You saying about your community, your group, is so exactly how my father saw life. He would never let people down when he was needed. You are all so brave, so amazing and fighting a wonderful fight. All my best wishes to you and all Ukrainians
Hello, Mr Kravchuk! You liked my comment on today's post by Timothy Snyder (Lecture 2, The Making of Modern Ukraine), so I decided to click on your picture to find out who you are. I read this post, then decided to subscribe. In this essay you point out something I think about a lot: that, as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes, we live once and only once, no more. Every time I see a picture of a Ukrainian soldier who has been killed, every time I see a picture of a Ukrainian civilian who has been killed, I think of Rilke's words from the Ninth Elegy:
Aber weil Hiersein viel ist, und weil uns scheinbar
alles das Hiesige braucht, dieses Schwindende, das
seltsam uns angeht. Uns, die Schwindendsten. *Ein* Mal
jedes, nur *ein* Mal. Ein Mal und nichtmer. Und wir auch
*ein* Mal. Nie wieder. Aber dieses
*ein* Mal gewesen zu sein, wenn auch nur ein Mal:
*irdisch* gewesen zu sein, scheint nicht widerrufbar.
(But because *life* here compels us, and because everything here
seems to need us, all this fleetingness
that strangely entreats us. Us, the *most* fleeting . . .
*Once* for each thing, only once. Once and no more, And we, too,
only once. Never again. But to have been
*once,* even though only once:
this having been *earthly* seems lasting, beyond repeal.)
---Translated by Edward Snow
Every time a young Ukrainian is killed, whether child or adult, generations of Ukrainians have also been killed. When I saw the photographs of a newborn boy a few months ago, I thought, "His children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, etc., have also been killed."
I will think about you every day, and I wish you the very best.
Thank you so much for the compliments and for dedicating your care to me and to my nation, dear Rose. Your words are an inspiration to keep on the writing journey. I'm the one without words to express how grateful I am for your subscription, also by the fact we could connect each other here by a post from Mr. Snyder, someone who is making a wonderful job by increasing awareness and knowledge about Ukraine.
I'm a long admirer of Rainier Maria Rilke, I consider very few reached his sensibility when talking about love and life in general: in fact, I got to know his works much later in my life and was amazed about how I found identification about his writings and my personal beliefs.
From 'Letters to a Young Poet':
“To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation...Love is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”
I read Rose’s comment following Dr Snyder’s second lecture, saw she had connected to you and so read what you had written. What you were thinking about due to your fighting experience was so intensely real.
I’m miles away in Aotearoa New Zealand where I grew up, but was born late 1944 in London. My father was an NZ soldier who had been in the allied forces in North Africa for 4 years. I’ve always thought about and read about how people face such circumstances.
You saying about your community, your group, is so exactly how my father saw life. He would never let people down when he was needed. You are all so brave, so amazing and fighting a wonderful fight. All my best wishes to you and all Ukrainians
Hello, Mr Kravchuk! You liked my comment on today's post by Timothy Snyder (Lecture 2, The Making of Modern Ukraine), so I decided to click on your picture to find out who you are. I read this post, then decided to subscribe. In this essay you point out something I think about a lot: that, as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes, we live once and only once, no more. Every time I see a picture of a Ukrainian soldier who has been killed, every time I see a picture of a Ukrainian civilian who has been killed, I think of Rilke's words from the Ninth Elegy:
Aber weil Hiersein viel ist, und weil uns scheinbar
alles das Hiesige braucht, dieses Schwindende, das
seltsam uns angeht. Uns, die Schwindendsten. *Ein* Mal
jedes, nur *ein* Mal. Ein Mal und nichtmer. Und wir auch
*ein* Mal. Nie wieder. Aber dieses
*ein* Mal gewesen zu sein, wenn auch nur ein Mal:
*irdisch* gewesen zu sein, scheint nicht widerrufbar.
(But because *life* here compels us, and because everything here
seems to need us, all this fleetingness
that strangely entreats us. Us, the *most* fleeting . . .
*Once* for each thing, only once. Once and no more, And we, too,
only once. Never again. But to have been
*once,* even though only once:
this having been *earthly* seems lasting, beyond repeal.)
---Translated by Edward Snow
Every time a young Ukrainian is killed, whether child or adult, generations of Ukrainians have also been killed. When I saw the photographs of a newborn boy a few months ago, I thought, "His children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, etc., have also been killed."
I will think about you every day, and I wish you the very best.
Thank you so much for the compliments and for dedicating your care to me and to my nation, dear Rose. Your words are an inspiration to keep on the writing journey. I'm the one without words to express how grateful I am for your subscription, also by the fact we could connect each other here by a post from Mr. Snyder, someone who is making a wonderful job by increasing awareness and knowledge about Ukraine.
I'm a long admirer of Rainier Maria Rilke, I consider very few reached his sensibility when talking about love and life in general: in fact, I got to know his works much later in my life and was amazed about how I found identification about his writings and my personal beliefs.
From 'Letters to a Young Poet':
“To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation...Love is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”