Fragility...

(yes, this will be an odd blog post coming from me! don't worry - we'll return to regular programming shortly...)

I listened to this NPR program on the way home from Denver a few Sunday's ago. Music just wasn't cuttin' it for me on the drive home. I like to think I tuned in for a reason.

The program was Krista Tippett's on Being. She was speaking with a French man, Xavier Le Pichon. He lived in a concentration camp as a child and witnessed children of families dying every day. He chooses to live in a community of disabled people with his family. He is a famous geologist who works on plate tectonics....um, whatever that is.

He was speaking with the host about fragility and the evolution of humanity. How being fragile makes us human - what an interesting concept....

I was really fascinated by his interview - only caught part of it and kept meaning to look up the program to listen to it in it's entirety. You can find it here: http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/fragility/

Under his link, there is a poem, Le Vase Brise (The Broken Vase) by Sully Prudhomme. The English translated version is below. I think it is amazing and wanted to share.....


The vase where this verbena's dying
Was cracked by a lady’s fan’s soft blow.
It must have been the merest grazing:
We heard no sound. The fissure grew.

The little wound spread while we slept,
Pried deep in the crystal, bit by bit.
A long, slow marching line, it crept
From spreading base to curving lip.

The water oozed out drop by drop,
Bled from the line we’d not seen etched.
The flowers drained out all their sap.
The vase is broken: do not touch.


The quick, sleek hand of one we love
Can tap us with a fan’s soft blow,
And we will break, as surely riven
As that cracked vase. And no one knows.


The world sees just the hard, curved surface
Of a vase a lady’s fan once grazed,
That slowly drips and bleeds with sadness.
Do not touch the broken vase