Monthly Archives: May 2020
Elías Nandino
Love Without Death
Dust will be, but dust in love.
~Quevedo
__________
I love and the love I feel
I exist, I have life
and I’m burning my escape
ever born.
I love and every moment
love, my death is urged,
a love without measure
in continual burning.
But when love and do not try
because my body off
absorbent earth again:
everything will be devoured,
but not the burning love
dust of my love.
In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to feature a Mexican poet. Elías Nandino (1900-1993) was a surgeon from Mexico who was also a poet. Nandino worked as a surgeon at different hospitals during most of his life, during which he also wrote poetry. He was also open about his homosexuality in a time when it was dangerous to do so, but amazingly this did not affect his career as a surgeon.
His early poetry was rather sombre, focusing on topics like death, nighttime and dreams. From the 1950s his poetry became more personal, whereas his later poems combined eroticism and metaphysics.
Strange Times
I have today off work. In fact, I have every Monday and Friday off work for the rest of the month of May. I had vacation time I had to take by June 1 or lose it. I’d have loved to have been off several days in a row and head up to Montreal for a few days, but of course, the borders aren’t open, so that’s no dice. You know, vacation days during a quarantine doesn’t mean a whole lot. I’m still at home, just me and Isabella, who might just be tired of me being home all the time. She was in a bad mood all afternoon yesterday. She bit and scratched me several times just out of the blue.
I did have something I’d needed to do today. I signed up for Pre-TSA, so I can go through security at the airport quicker. However, for the third time, they’ve canceled my appointment. I started this process back in January, and TSA gives you six months to go in for you background check and interview. Hopefully, I’ll get it taken care of before I have to reapply.
I’m really not complaining about the quarantine. I think it is absolutely necessary to keep, not just me safe, but all the people who are at high risk safe. I don’t mind doing my part to make that happen. Luckily, I’m in the fifth safest state right now. As our university president told us the other day, “Vermont is good at social distancing. We are spread out enough that we can’t make a crowd.” He was trying to make a joke, but honestly, with the exception of some LGBT events I’ve been to, people in Vermont never want to be too close to anyone anyway. So, I’ll stay at home and when I do have to go out, I’ll dutifully wear my mask, unlike the assholes in charge of this country.
Also, I’ve been watching two new streaming shows: Hollywood on Netflix and Upload on Amazon Prime. I’ve enjoyed both of them. I watched the whole season of Hollywood, and I’m halfway through Upload. I’d recommend either to anyone. Hollywood has a lot of gay storylines, and Upload is futuristic sci-fi. If either of those sounds interesting, watch them.
Ok, enough rambling for one day.
For the Good
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (KJV) ( Romans 8:28 )
How do you make sense of suffering when you see others walking through it or you are walking through it? It’s wrong to assume it exclusively happens to punish sins. But what if we view suffering as something that God can use for good? No one claims to know everything about God or why He allows bad things to happen. Ultimately, our thoughts on suffering reflect our belief of God’s character. Do you view God as good and He can use events to draw us closer to depend on Him?
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