Jorge Luis Borges.  When Sorrow Lays Us Low.

Jorge Luis Borges. When Sorrow Lays Us Low.

Author: The Ceylon Press September 27, 2025 Duration: 1:57

 
When sorrow lays us low 
for a second we are saved 
by humble windfalls 
of the mindfulness or memory: 
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water, 
that face given back to us by a dream, 
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us--
touch us and move on.

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 The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  
 

The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. 

 

POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: 
 English translations copyright by Emecé Editores, S. A., and Norman Thomas di Giovanni Introduction and Notes copyright by Norman Thomas di Giovanni Original Spanish texts copyright by Emecé Editores, S. A., Buenos Aires


There’s a particular sound to the jungle-a layered quiet of leaves, birds, and distant water. It’s from within that atmosphere that The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle finds its voice. Produced by The Ceylon Press, each episode is recorded at the Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, nestled in the wilds northwest of Kandy. This isn’t a standard literary analysis show; it’s an experience of resonance. Here, timeless poems by renowned authors are read aloud, allowing their rhythms and meanings to intertwine with the ambient sounds of a Sri Lankan forest. The setting does more than provide backdrop-it actively shapes how you hear each word, offering a fresh and quietly profound perspective on verses you thought you knew. This podcast invites a slower kind of listening, where a classic sonnet might be punctuated by a monsoon shower or the call of a hornbill. It’s for anyone who believes place matters, that the environment where a story is told becomes part of the story itself. Tune in for a unique fusion of the literary and the natural, a deliberate retreat into the world of spoken art framed by one of the planet’s most vibrant soundscapes.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 89

The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle
Podcast Episodes
Anna Akhmatova.  Poem Without a Hero. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:02
I have lit my treasured candles, one by one, to hallow this night. With you, who do not come, I wait the birth of the year. Dear God! the flame has drowned in crystal, and the wine, like poison, burns Old malice bites th…
Alun Lewis.  All Day It Has Rained. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:57
All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors Have sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors, Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy ground And from the first grey wakening we have found No refu…
Allen Ginsberg.  My Sad Self. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:56
Sometimes when my eyes are red I go up on top of the RCA Building and gaze at my world, Manhattan— my buildings, streets I’ve done feats in, lofts, beds, coldwater flats —on Fifth Ave below which I also bear in mind, its…
Abu Nuwas.  In The Bath-House. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:26
In the bath-house, the mysteries hidden by trousersAre revealed to you.All becomes radiantly manifest.Feast your eyes without restraint!You see handsome buttocks, shapely trim torsos,You hear the guys whispering pious fo…
Catullus.  Poem 5. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:35
Let us live, my Lesbia, and love,and the rumors of rather stern old menlet us value all at just one penny!Suns may set and rise again;for us, when once the brief light has set,an eternal night must be slept.Give me a tho…
Andrew Marvell.  To His Coy Mistress. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:14
Had we but world enough and time,This coyness, lady, were no crime.We would sit down, and think which wayTo walk, and pass our long love’s day.Thou by the Indian Ganges’ sideShouldst rubies find; I by the tideOf Humber w…
Breyten Breytenbach.  A Footnote Under The Night Of History. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:59
in the night when everything was blackburnt to a cross of ashon the blind glassand the dog’s bark a dark kiteblowing away in darkness to where the moontears like the keel of a sinking boatI dreamt my languagethe title pa…
Alun Lewis.  The Jungle. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:56
The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: S…