Oct 17 2025
Juan Ramon Jimenez – Who Knows What is Going On
Who Knows What is Going On
by Juan Ramon Jimenez
English version by Robert Bly
Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour?
How many times the sunrise was
there, behind a mountain!
How many times the brilliant cloud piling up far off
was already a golden body full of thunder!
This rose was poison.
That sword gave life.
I was thinking of a flowery meadow
at the end of a road,
and found myself in the slough.
I was thinking of the greatness of what was human,
and found myself in the divine.
— from The Winged Energy of Delight, Translated by Robert Bly
/ Image by Pramod Tiwari /
Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour?
Isn’t that just a wonderful opening line? It’s one of those profound, enigmatic statements that can trip you up full stop, making the rest of the poem an afterthought.
But what is the poet saying? I think he’s encouraging us to not bring our assumptions to each experience in life. We have to encounter each experience, each hour, as it is, not as we expect it to be. This is why he turns our expectations on their head with lines like:
This rose was poison.
That sword gave life.
Every single moment holds its secret and is pregnant with surprise…
How many times the sunrise was
there, behind a mountain!
To approach life without the false certainty of what each experience holds requires a supreme humility. More than that, it requires courage, especially when things seem dark or hopeless. It requires us to cherish the unexpected possibilities of each encounter more deeply than our own accumulating history. It requires a silence of mind, a sense of wonder, and a restoration of our inherent innocence. And a boldness. But, when we truly learn to live this way, magic happens! We open ourselves and, in turn, the common things we encounter open themselves to us, revealing hidden worlds within…
I was thinking of the greatness of what was human,
and found myself in the divine.
Recommended Books: Juan Ramon Jimenez
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Juan Ramon Jimenez
Spain (1881 – 1958) Timeline |
Juan Ramon Jimenez was the son of a banker. He grew up in Moguer, a beautiful region of Spain that deeply imprinted itself on the poet. Jimenez studied painting at the University of Seville before abandoning his schoolwork to dedicate himself completely to writing.
In the early 1900s, Jimenez composed several collections of poetry, and he also translated the work of Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore into Spanish (with Zenobia Camprubi, who later became his wife). Later in his career he also became an influential literary critic. (Despite his great poetic work, in the US Jimenez first gained notoriety for his novel Platero y yo/Platero and I.)
When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he was sent by the Republican faction to the US as an honorary cultural attache. When the fascist forces under Franco took control of Spain, Jimenez and his wife became exiles and settled in Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Themes of nature, depths, immensity, death, darkness, secret life, and transcendence appear in many of his poems. The spirituality reflected in his poetry is deeply personal, mystical, and transformative.
In 1956, Juan Ramon Jimenez was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died two years later in Puerto Rico.
Thank you for sharing this poem and offering your explanation. I really hope to be curious to what each moment brings. It’s a great way to live!
Your explanation made the poem richer and deeper for me. Thank you!