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| { The Melody } |
While you're here, remember just
What you are, how you're made
for the sun.
For the sun is always.
I don't know quite how I'll land,
But I know I'm a blade
of the sun,
for the sun is always.
When I don't know where to go,
Still I know what I'm racing for:
for the sun.
For the sun is always.
And I'll fall on my face
Just to feel what it warms,
for the sun –
for the sun is always.
Packed inside, I'm alone,
Just a shadow in the day
while the sun –
while the sun is always.
So I'll have to find a place
Just to give myself away
in the sun,
for the sun is always.
I'm 10 billion times below
The 100 billion centigrade
of the sun,
for the sun is always.
But when I kiss you, I feel something
warm
That long ago was made
by the sun,
for the sun is always.
I am small and unremarkable –
And I may not last the day
here in the sun –
for the sun is always.
But if you want something warm
Down here in the windy shade,
I'll be the sun,
for the sun
is always.
*Thanks Hilary, David, Julie, Julie-another, and Jessica (various sunsets; single sun) for making this collage full.
ReplyDelete“...The hundred billion centigrade...”
ReplyDeleteOkay, FACTUALLY, the sun is around 5,778° K (5,500° Celsius) at its surface – the photosphere – and about 27 million° F (15 million° Celsius) at its fusion-pumping core. So it's not literally ... nor even approximately ... as hot as this song states.
(the human core runs about 37°C – only 405,405.405∞ times below the sun's).
But then again, this song's not about objective facts so much as deep internal perceptions: “the sun is reeeeally hot compared to me; awesomely and humblingly so” is essentially what the song is saying – don't cite exuberantly passionate poetry in your science projects, it should go without saying. It's exaggeration of BOTH the smallness of man's temperature (by about 4x) and the greatness of the sun's temperature (by about 2700x) expresses the PERCEPTION of that grand, deference-evoking disparity in the mind of a small, cool child of the sun (such as myself).
{What the hell is this song about?}
ReplyDeleteHere's a plainspoken translation, stanza by stanza – it's important to me for this song that you have access to my intended meaning: the perceptual, philosophical, and actional treatise underlying this song is something I believe to be valuable and (perhaps not as “fact” but as a “reality”) true.
1) While you are alive, remember principally that you are made OF stellar material, and therefore made TO find a place where you can connect with that system / Like a ray of sun, we may not know exactly what we're meant to do, where to go, or how to most 'rightly' exist – but at least we know what we're made of.
2) And that carries with it some sense of belonging; some purpose / Each time we fall, or ache, or hunger, it heightens our awareness; it puts us into fresh contact with the core of ourselves and our place in this world.
3) When we pull ourselves away from these experiences, retreating within, we find ourselves alone and coldly mortal – unnaturally bereft of the sun's ongoing sustenance / Thus we are called to pour ourselves outward and – bared before the sun – revive our senses, our connections to the ongoing cosmos (our little part of it).
4) The sun clearly engenders respect and awe by its elegance, grandeur, and nutrient power / But so too, we as small pieces of warm life are awesome in our own right: we carry that legacy, that beauty, that ability to sustain (ourselves and the world within our reach).
5) My touch is only local and brief (clearly so, compared to the sun – its radiance seems inexhaustible within my perception of time) / But still I can become a force of grand consequence here in my element, in the world where I've landed and grown into something natively well-suited and capable. As is the sun in its sphere, so I am in mine: we are meant for our places, filling our proper spots at our right magnitudes. I am no lukewarm stellar monster, and the sun no grounded speck of fusion – there would be no sense, no purpose in making it so. I am – as I am – intended.
Phew. There, now I feel better. Maybe you started skimming after a ways, but that's only natural – I understand. Go outside and play :)
Beautiful poem. The concept of this ambiguous constant, the sun, is both complex and utterly true. Although fixed, the sun is just "always", but what this always is or means is unknown- the sun is always radiating heat and warmth, but why, and why on me? The comparison of the speaker to this massive force, seems to make the speaker appear small and timid, yet he seems to grow over the course of the poem, accumulating the ancient strength and warmth of the sun, and the finally, acting as the sun does, shedding this radiance and warmth on another. What was your inspiration?
ReplyDelete-Emily R.
What is my inspiration ever? Girls :)
DeleteIt also happened to coincide with an interview - on the Colbert Report, January 9th 2013 - with Neil Shubin, about his book "The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People." This helped spur some of the scientific backing for the later verses.
But the song had already begun by then, coming out almost in totality as I ran along the beach through the wind, watching everything go orange with the light of the setting sun ... myself included.
The poem hits on the feeling of smallness that any human feels when contemplating the vastness of our universe, even such a relatively minuscule locality as our solar system. Yet, in the sense that we contemplate the universe, we are a part of the grandiose procession of things we admire, as humans are made partly from star dust. The poem seems to epitomize the human search for meaning within our universe and our sense of being a part, while being somewhat apart from the world we have been placed in. This might just be me, but I also see some reflection of love because of the sense of a grander overwhelming power that creates warmth within someone. The moment of noting our relation in size and purpose to the universe is a uniquely interesting one and the beauty of the sun as it falls upon us is an amazing way to see and feel that comparison.
ReplyDeleteYeah -- the sensation of love's gotta come from somewhere ... it's not unique to social animals (that gravity between a mother and child, between an ostrich and its lifelong mate, between the planets and the sun: as Dr. Bronner's soap bottle says: "All one.")
Delete