Reading check-in + Day Five + Appreciation of Selected Foreign Prose + reading notes
With her graceful prose, Rosa Luxemburg speaks to us gently of what she saw and thought on the eve of being transferred to another prison. After nine months in this prison, she knew every blade of grass and every tree there by heart. Though she had walked these paths countless times, each passage brought its own feelings and thoughts. What is even more amusing is that, from these trivial experiences of daily life, the author continually gained new insight, as though this were not a deprivation of freedom, but more like a spiritual practice carried out in confinement.
Immediately afterward, the author mentions that, while deep in thought, she remembered Goethe's poetry. She lingered in its music and strange enchantment. Poetry, for her, seemed to become a spiritual spring; with parched lips she sipped this nectar of the spirit. Not only her inner life, but even her body seemed, under this watering, to grow full of vitality. Whatever hardship she found herself in, the sanctity, tenderness, and quiet grace of poetry remained unchanged in her heart. The author never altered her devotion; the pure land within her always endured.
The author writes that the distant clouds seemed like smiles, and also like greetings. From this we can see the optimism of our woman fighter, our woman revolutionary, as well as her confidence and strength in holding the enemy in contempt. Here, the author's thoughts suddenly open out completely from her little garden. She realizes that clouds do not exist only in Wronke, nor only at this present moment. Clouds are everywhere; wherever we are, so long as we are willing to raise our heads and look toward the sky, the clouds are there.
"As long as I live," the clouds and the beauty of life will remain with me.
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