Although there are only eight lines in “The Condition of Certain Evenings”, a poem written by Ravi Shankar, it does share a profound insight into the meaning of life.

In this poem, the author describes the condition of certain evenings of two different places, on the hillside and in the cities, which draw us a bleak picture of the coming night. Moreover, the evening is used as a metaphor for the approaching of death in this poem. Through this brief poem, I can get a deep resonance that death will come to us, sooner or later.

In the beginning of the poem, the poet comes up with a question---“Have you noticed it?” Yes, if one pays more attention to the things of the world, such as the rising and setting of the sun, the blooming and withering of the flowers and the rounding and waning of the moon, one may find that everything has its beginning and ending, and so is human life. It is cruel but true that we are all waiting for the arrival of death, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. However, many people haven’t noticed that, and, even if they do, they attempt to evade it.

In China, death, among all sorts of ominous words, is a taboo that will not be allowed to be talked about or even mentioned. In my family, if I speak out the word ‘death’ or something related to death, there will be an awkward moment and an angry face of my mom. From my point of view, the reason why people evade death is that they are of great fear of it. However, whether one admits it or not, just as Russell M. Nelson said, ’We were born to die’, one will never escape from the shadow of death.

We live in a world that is full of impermanence so that we cannot predict what will happen in the future. In front of all the odds of life, all the ups and downs along the way, unless to evade death, it is better for one to face up to it, to make full use of his brief life. The virtue of facing up to death is that one is more likely to cherish his life and is inclined to do more meaningful things. Joan Borysenko once said, ’The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.’ I believe that death is not a negative word but an optimistic one.

At the end of the poem, Ravi Shankar says, ’One by one, we wait’. Yes, we are all waiting for death’s arrival, sooner or later. No one will be missed. Nevertheless, one can do all sorts of things to make the journey more colorful, cheerful and meaningful.

In that case, death is no more a devil but a saint.

附：

The Condition of Certain Evenings

By Ravi Shankar

Have you noticed it? In a tower

On a depilated hillside, bells clap.

Arrival's color has faded from the sky

And snow spreads its blanket on gray mountains.

Elsewhere, lights go on and off in cities,

Avenues are clad in shadow's apparel.

Breaths go in and out of many lungs.

One by one, we wait.

某些黄昏的情景

原作：拉维·尚卡

翻译：李国玉（外语系教师）

你注意到了吗？光秃秃的山上，

某座塔里，钟声响起。

抵达者的色彩已从空中消逝，

白雪覆盖了灰茫茫的群山。

在别处，城市的灯火明明灭灭，

街道披上了暗影的外衣。

气息在人们的肺里进进出出。

一个接一个，我们等待着。