Hace una mañana hermosa en San José: soleada, tibia, cúmulos y estratocúmulos dándole textura al horizonte, sobre las cumbres de las montañas del suroeste en Alajuelita, Escazú, Santa Ana. En mi jardín, florecen la passiflora alata (belleza amazónica y purpúrea) y la passiflora vitifolia (roja pasión), así como las rosas magenta. En cualquier momento vendrá … Continue reading Noche Buena en San José
I am thoroughly enjoying these autumn evenings reading Louise Glück's Meadowlands (1996). Her poems weave the story of Penelope, Odysseus, and Telemachus into the life of a childless, contemporary couple mired in a strained relationship. They share moments of generosity and pettiness, love and hurt, vindictiveness and remorse, neediness and aloofness, blended with instances of … Continue reading Glück: Quiet Evening
Se ha estrenado la película Perfect Days (2023) de Wim Wenders en mi querido Cine Magaly, en San José. La he visto dos veces: la primera, en Angelika Film Center, en el barrio de SoHo, Manhattan, y la segunda en Brooklyn Academy of Music, en Fort Greene. Estas tres salas de cine son importantes para … Continue reading Wim Wenders: Perfect Days
I am thankful when I find time to read to nurture my inner life. This semester, for sundry reasons, I have been engulfed in academic, political, and intellectual matters. It has been difficult to find time to read for nourishing the heart and cultivating the inner life that sustains all other vital affairs. I have … Continue reading Wagamese: Fortitude, Love and Longing
There are a few personal encounters in one's life that seem fated and are so significant that they transcend time, space, history, place, and a single lifespan. They can happen on any random date--say, 19 December, 9 January, 21 June, 31 October or 26 December--and that date acquires a significance that seems destined and lasts … Continue reading Encounters
We welcomed the New Year on the shores of the Bosphorus. The fireworks' explosion of color and sound startled the flocks of seagulls that flew overhead. The late night fog swept in from the water into the land, enveloping the people's happiness, and ours, as if in a veil of mystic rapture. That was one … Continue reading Rumi: A Stringed Instrument
You walk among the spirits of flying dervishes and the whispers of their mystical joy on the anniversary of Rumi's death. How many lives have been loved, how many loves have been lived, how many flying hearts have turned and danced in his land since 17 December 1273? How many dances have been danced, how … Continue reading Rumi: Rubaiyat at Random
I have been biking to the piers at Sunset Park to read Siddhartha while facing the upper bay of the Hudson River's estuary. I knew that Siddhartha's encounter with the river would be the tale's most moving chapter for me. I wanted to prepare for it by contemplating, as I read, the ebb and flow … Continue reading Siddhartha by the River
Sometimes reading takes us out "on a walk." For many years I had longed to return to the Egyptian-Lybian desert and to the hills of Tuscany by reading Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient (1992). About a month ago I was finally able to let Ondaatje's lyrical storytelling take me on that walk. I have … Continue reading The English Patient: Nationlessness and Namelessness
Daniel G. Campos 