An ode to planet earth and to poetry
The solemn vow of a poet
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Who dares to sell sky and oceans?
Our world is a wondrous creation
These tangible parts must remain
Between ground and sky, forever.
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We do not own the clouds and the sky
Or the firmament or something of the earth
Man made neither sun nor moon
Nor an atom in a grain of sand.
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Man cheats and kills for power
Whipped up by greed; our breathing corpse
Rejects goodness and renounces
Of the dignity of our soul.
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Parts and raw materials of this earth
Are all heavenly treasures worth
Cherish earth, air and water forever
Make the world more beautiful than the firmament.
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Fields, forests and impenetrable wilderness
High mountains reaching to the clouds
Great apes, buffaloes, tigers and elephants,
ants and all animal species in the world…
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…are our dearly beloved friends
Partners in our series of rebirths
Our priceless ageless existence
Superb treasures of immeasurable value.
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Let others fly to infinity
Hit the road to moon and stars
But my heart is lost to this living world
To the earth, for all my lives.
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Really, I pass for nirvana
Undergo the cycle of rebirths
To convey all that wonderfulness
To poems dedicated to this world.
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To purify the human world from sorrow
Until a golden age of peace arrives
Then my ashes become one with the world
A petrified fossil standing guard.
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Is man becoming deaf to the beauty of poetry?
What could absorb this loss?
Even ashes and garbage would go horrifying
Of the emptiness in our poor little soul.
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Would the world be too poor for poetry?
Then I will flee from here, dear ones
Build an empire out of my mind power
With beautiful rhymes about the rainbow.
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Then I enchant the heavenly kingdom
With an invaluable wealth of poems
My intellectual merits in the arts
Then survive the infinity.
-The-
Source: The South East Asia Write Anthology of Thai Short Stories and Poems. An anthology of award-winning short stories and poems. Silkworm Books, Thailand.
English title 'A Poet's Pledge', in Thai more. Translated and edited by Erik Kuijpers. There are two poems on this subject that have been translated into English and they are called 'A Poet's Pledge' numbers 1 and 2. To make it easier…Poet Angkarn Kalayanapong (See more, Nakhon Si Thammarat, 1926-2012) was a great poet and painter. He belonged to the 'yellow' camp politically. See Lung Jan's article in this blog: https://www.thailandblog.nl/achtergrond/thailand-om-dichterlijk-van-te-worden/
About this blogger
- Built in 1946. Nicknamed 'Running tax almanac' and worked in that profession for 36 years. Moved to Thailand at 55. Disability forced him from his family in Nongkhai to a house with home care and mobility scooter in Súdwest-Fryslân.
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Nicely done, Eric! May I say something about his name? My obsession.
Angkharn Kanlayanaphong;, in Thai script อังคาร กัลยาณพงศ์;; The first name Angkhan is not that difficult, it means 'the planet Mars', as in wan angkharn 'Tuesday'.
His last name took me some time. The last bit 'phong' means 'family, genus' and occurs in many names. It took me longer to understand the 'kanlayana' part. It stands for 'beautiful, fortunate, pleasant, honorable'. 'The excellent family'.
กัลยา 'kalaya' only means 'beautiful woman' and is also a girl name.
What a beautiful and poetic language Thai is!
Tino, funny that his name is Kanlayanap(h)ong. Yes, I had already seen that PH but I keep the name in the international translation.
But the 'double counting' of the 'l' surprises me because I don't see it appearing anywhere. As the last letter of a syllable it becomes an 'n' and as the first letter it becomes an 'l'. Entirely according to Thai grammar. It is a special language, that Thai, and I continue to be amazed.
Still, I'm slowly losing my Thai. I have been living in NL for 4 years now and I no longer speak Thai every day. I Skype with the family in Thailand every two weeks but that is getting more and more difficult. I think, in my ignorance, this is because Thai was not taught to me in a structured way while German, English and French were drilled into me at HBS-B over six years. I speak those languages well!
But I'm sure others can update me on this!