The wounds were burning like suns at five in the afternoon, and the crowd broke the windows At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon!
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the intensity of experience and the passage of time, suggesting moments of crisis or revelation.
Federico Garcia Lorca's quote captures the profound sense of urgency and emotional pain associated with a specific time of day, 'five in the afternoon'. It conveys a feeling of inevitability and fatalism as the imagery of burning wounds juxtaposes the mundane passage of time with the intensity of human experience and suffering. The repetitive emphasis on 'five in the afternoon' suggests a moment that is pivotal, encapsulating both personal turmoil and a collective response to it.
In practice
In a speech about perseverance, one might say, 'Remember Lorca's words, the wounds may burn, but we must face the time, even when it feels fatal.'
There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain's tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.
The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink - and in drinking understand themselves.
Death laid its eggs in the wound
The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish.
New York is something awful, something monstrous. I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines.
Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of being without fruit. Why was I born among mirrors? Day goes round and round me. The night copies me in all its stars. I want to live without my reflection. And then let me dream that ants and thistledown are my leaves and my parrots.
A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts.
Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.
The moon is a loyal companion._x000D_ It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human._x000D_ Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.
And I have the others in me. Even when I’m far away from them, I am forced to live with them. Even when I’m all alone, crowds surround me. I have no place to flee to, unless I were to flee from myself.
Sometimes, they say, the moon is so busy with the new souls of the world that it disappears from the sky. That is why we have moonless nights. But in the end, the moon always returns, as do we all.
Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens.... My grandfather would say we're part of something incredibly wonderful - more marvelous than we imagine. My grandfather would say we ought to go out and look at it once in a while so we don't lose our place in it.
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