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Pride and Love



They can destroy me, my boy,
but not defeat me.
The surge of pride in my veins is what keeps me alive.

They mocked me when I returned from the sea
day after day
without fish.
Unlucky fisherman.
Santiago the doomed.
Santiago the accursed.
Santiago the beaten.

No, Manolin, no,
I could embrace bad luck
I could swallow damnation.
But defeat?
No, Manolin, no.
I am Santiago, masterful fisherman.
I am Santiago, more man than I am.
Old man who wakes up early in order to have one longer day.
Beaten I cannot be; destroyed yes if need be.

Mine is the turtle’s heart, boy,
It beats for hours after it has been cut up.
The marlin I hooked had such a heart too.
We were brothers, the marlin and I,
each one with a heart whose beats
matched each other’s.
The marlin was my friend and foe at once,
my strength and my weakness,
my pride and my humility,
my master and my victim.

I love you, Marlin,
That’s why I have to kill you.
Else you will kill me.
You have to.
We are in it together.

PS. Santiago is the protagonist of Ernest Hemingway’s novel Old Man and the Sea. Manolin is a boy who is devoted to him.




Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 12, 2017 at 6:31 AM

    no comments

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 12, 2017 at 6:45 AM

    Hope remains eternal in human breast

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 12, 2017 at 6:52 AM

      Hope is a dominant theme of the novel. It's a sin not to hope, as Santiago says. But I love the theme of 'destruction versus defeat.'

      Delete
  3. Pranju chakrapaniOctober 16, 2017 at 6:39 PM

    It revived my memory of the book. Santiago, the salo, the worst form of unlucky. But he didn't care. Deep within him was the lion who still had the pride and the perseverance. Who cares about luck when one has got perseverance to live one more day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 17, 2017 at 7:34 AM

      Indeed. Thus Santiago becomes the real hero, an inspiration.

      Delete
  4. Rajeev MoothedathOctober 19, 2017 at 7:45 AM

    Nice to see you write more poetry. Always loved it when you wrote though rarely.

    ReplyDelete

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