Parting Poem by Carlos Paez Vilaro

Hi Blog Readers,

If you read the last blog from Uruguay you viewed our day at Casapueblo;

the museum/hotel/home of  Uruguayan artist Carlos Paez Vilaro. He was also a poet and Bob came upon his "Sun Ceremony" poem in a book we have in our condo. As a poetry and quote lover, I had to share it with you. It's a beauty. 

Enjoy,

Mary

Sunsetting over Lake Superior

                            Sun Ceremony 

Hello Sun...! 

Again with no warning you come back to visit us.

Again in your long walk from the beginnings of life.

Hello Sun…!

With your belly full of melting gold to share it generously,

through towns and hamlets, rural chapels, valleys, woods,

rivers of forsaken villages.

From my terrace I see you coming every afternoon as a 

blazing ring of fire rolling across the years, punctual, never-

failing, encouraging my philosophy since the day I dreamt of

building Casapueblo and the day I laid the first brick among

the rocks.

Hello Sun…!

How I would have loved to be your companion on your long

journey as you bestowed your light, for along your way you

have touched the life of a thousand peoples, been part of

their joys and sorrows, known war and peace, encouraged

prayer and labor, walked alongside freedom and made the

darkness of prisons less hard.

Hello Sun…!

I thank you for returning to encourage my artist's life. For

you have made my loneliness less lonely. It is that I have 

Sun-kissed walls, Antelope Canyon, Arizona

grown accustomed to your company and I seek you 

wherever you might be if I have you not.

As I look at you I can see that you have not changed,

that you are the same that the Aztecs revered, the same

of my painting pilgrimage through America, the same that

wrapped the secret and mysterious Amazonia, the same

that has illuminated my path to the sacred Machu Picchu

in Peru, the same of the Patagonian valleys or the Sioux or

Comanche territories. The same sun that took me to Borneo,

Sumatra, Bali, the musical islands or the blazing sands of 

the Sahara.

Goodbye Sun…!

When in an instant you will be gone, the last lights shall die.

The nostalgia will get hold of me and the darkness will enter

Casapueblo.

Goodbye Sun…!

Thank you for making us shed a tear, when we think that

you have also illuminated the life of our grandparents, of our

Sunset over Mt. Iron, Wanaka, New Zealand

parents and of all our beloved departed ones, who continue,

nontheless, enjoying you from somewhere higher.

Farewell Sun…!

I shall wait for you tomorrow once again. Casapueblo is your

home, that is why everybody calls it 'the sun's home', the 

Sun of my artist's life. The Sun of my loneliness. It is that I

deem myself wealthy in suns which I keep well stored, in a 

safe, in the horizon.

Extracted from 'Ceremonia del Sol,' by Carlos Paez Vilaro

Sun-kissed mountaintop in  Mt. Aspiring National Park, Wanaka, New Zealand