{"id":8629,"date":"2025-10-17T09:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8629"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:25:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:25:47","slug":"juan-ramon-jimenez-who-knows-what-is-going-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/17\/juan-ramon-jimenez-who-knows-what-is-going-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Juan Ramon Jimenez – Who Knows What is Going On"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who Knows What is Going On
\nby Juan Ramon Jimenez<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Robert Bly<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How many times the sunrise was
\nthere, behind a mountain!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How many times the brilliant cloud piling up far off
\nwas already a golden body full of thunder!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This rose was poison.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That sword gave life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was thinking of a flowery meadow
\nat the end of a road,
\nand found myself in the slough.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was thinking of the greatness of what was human,
\nand found myself in the divine.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Winged Energy of Delight<\/a>, Translated by Robert Bly<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Pramod Tiwari<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour?<\/i><\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that just a wonderful opening line? It\u2019s one of those profound, enigmatic statements that can trip you up full stop, making the rest of the poem an afterthought.<\/p>\n

But what is the poet saying? I think he\u2019s 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:<\/p>\n

This rose was poison.<\/p>\n

That sword gave life.<\/i><\/p>\n

Every single moment holds its secret and is pregnant with surprise\u2026<\/p>\n

How many times the sunrise was
\nthere, behind a mountain!<\/i><\/p>\n

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\u2026<\/p>\n

I was thinking of the greatness of what was human,
\nand found myself in the divine.<\/i><\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Juan Ramon Jimenez<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Winged Energy of Delight<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nNews of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nInvisible Reality<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nTime and Space: A Poetic Autobiography<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Juan<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nJuan Ramon Jimenez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Spain (1881 \u2013 1958) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/i>\/Platero and I.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In 1956, Juan Ramon Jimenez was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died two years later in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Juan Ramon Jimenez<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who Knows What is Going On by Juan Ramon Jimenez English version by Robert Bly \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How many times the sunrise was there, behind a mountain! \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How many times the brilliant cloud piling up far off was already a golden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2609,311,156,2610],"class_list":["post-8629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-hidden-reality","tag-juan-ramon-jimenez","tag-spanish-poetry","tag-unexpected"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8629"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8631,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8629\/revisions\/8631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}