Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958)
Oceans
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing... Silence... Waves...
—Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
Translated by Robert Bly
Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958) was a prolific Spanish poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. A quote from Jiménez, "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way," is the epigraph to Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451.
Selected by Amy Frykholm: amy@journeywithjesus.net
