4.24.2011
4.23.2011
Adam Zagajewski (1945 - present)
Another Beauty
We find comfort only in
another beauty, in others'
music, in the poetry of others.
Salvation lies with others,
though solitude may taste like
opium. Other people aren't hell
if you glimpse them at dawn, when
their brows are clean, rinsed by dreams.
This is why I pause: which word
to use, you or he. Each he
betrays some you, but
calm conversation bides its time
in others' poems.
translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh
We find comfort only in
another beauty, in others'
music, in the poetry of others.
Salvation lies with others,
though solitude may taste like
opium. Other people aren't hell
if you glimpse them at dawn, when
their brows are clean, rinsed by dreams.
This is why I pause: which word
to use, you or he. Each he
betrays some you, but
calm conversation bides its time
in others' poems.
translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh
4.17.2011
4.16.2011
Anonymous Zuni Tribe
Invocation to the U'wannami
Come, ascend the ladder: all come in: all sit down.
We were poor, poor, poor, poor, poor,
When we came to this world through the poor place,
Where the body of water dried for our passing.
Banked up clouds cover the earth.
All come four times with your showers:
Descend to the base of the ladder and stand still:
Bring your showers and great rains.
All, all come, all ascend, all come in, all sit down.
translated from the Zuni by Matilda Coxe Stevenson in 1905
Come, ascend the ladder: all come in: all sit down.
We were poor, poor, poor, poor, poor,
When we came to this world through the poor place,
Where the body of water dried for our passing.
Banked up clouds cover the earth.
All come four times with your showers:
Descend to the base of the ladder and stand still:
Bring your showers and great rains.
All, all come, all ascend, all come in, all sit down.
translated from the Zuni by Matilda Coxe Stevenson in 1905
4.06.2011
Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - present)
Nothing Twice
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.
One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
Parting With a View
I don't reproach the spring
for starting up again.
I can't blame it
for doing what it must
year after year.
I know that my grief
will not stop the green.
The grass blade may bend
but only in the wind.
I take note of the fact
that the shore of a certain lake
is still--as if you were living--
as lovely as before.
I don't resent
the view for its vista
of a sun dazzled bay.
I am even able to imagine
some non-us
sitting at this minute
on a fallen birch trunk.
I respect their right
to whisper, to laugh,
and lapse into happy silence.
I can even allow
that they are bound by love
and that he holds her
with a living arm.
Something freshly birdish
starts rustling in the reeds.
I sincerely want them
to hear it.
I don't require changes
from the surf,
now diligent, now sluggish,
obeying not me.
I expect nothing
from the depths near the woods,
first emerald,
then sapphire,
then black.
There's one thing I won't agree to:
my own return.
The privilege of presence--
I give it up.
I survived you by enough,
and only by enough,
to contemplate from afar.
translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.
One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
Parting With a View
I don't reproach the spring
for starting up again.
I can't blame it
for doing what it must
year after year.
I know that my grief
will not stop the green.
The grass blade may bend
but only in the wind.
I take note of the fact
that the shore of a certain lake
is still--as if you were living--
as lovely as before.
I don't resent
the view for its vista
of a sun dazzled bay.
I am even able to imagine
some non-us
sitting at this minute
on a fallen birch trunk.
I respect their right
to whisper, to laugh,
and lapse into happy silence.
I can even allow
that they are bound by love
and that he holds her
with a living arm.
Something freshly birdish
starts rustling in the reeds.
I sincerely want them
to hear it.
I don't require changes
from the surf,
now diligent, now sluggish,
obeying not me.
I expect nothing
from the depths near the woods,
first emerald,
then sapphire,
then black.
There's one thing I won't agree to:
my own return.
The privilege of presence--
I give it up.
I survived you by enough,
and only by enough,
to contemplate from afar.
translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
F
3.01.2011
Robert Creeley (1926 - 2005)
The Conspiracy
You send me your poems,
I'll send you mine.
Things tend to awaken
even through random communication.
Let us suddenly
proclaim spring. And jeer
at the others,
all the others.
I will send a picture too
if you will send me one of you.
For Friendship
For friendship
make a chain that holds,
to be bound to
others, two by two,
a walk, a garland,
handed by hands
that cannot move
unless they hold.
The Sentence
There is that in love
which, by the syntax of,
men find women and join
their bodies to their minds
-which wants so to acquire
a continuity, a place,
a demonstration that it must
be one's own sentence.
As We Sit
There is a long
stretch of sky
before us. The road
goes out to the channel
of the water. Birds
fly in the faintly
white sky. A sound
shuffles over
and over, shifting
sand and
water. A wind
blows steadily
as we sit.
You send me your poems,
I'll send you mine.
Things tend to awaken
even through random communication.
Let us suddenly
proclaim spring. And jeer
at the others,
all the others.
I will send a picture too
if you will send me one of you.
For Friendship
For friendship
make a chain that holds,
to be bound to
others, two by two,
a walk, a garland,
handed by hands
that cannot move
unless they hold.
The Sentence
There is that in love
which, by the syntax of,
men find women and join
their bodies to their minds
-which wants so to acquire
a continuity, a place,
a demonstration that it must
be one's own sentence.
As We Sit
There is a long
stretch of sky
before us. The road
goes out to the channel
of the water. Birds
fly in the faintly
white sky. A sound
shuffles over
and over, shifting
sand and
water. A wind
blows steadily
as we sit.
2.14.2011
Galway Kinnell (1927 - present)
Wait
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
1.24.2011
Lee Bassett
Sometimes, there are times when I cannot bear
to be alone. Sometimes, I wish that my basic pain
could melt into the sadness of another.
Sometimes, I wish that when I light a cigar,
my whole body would catch flame.
Sometimes, as if bonding is an emergency,
I turn into someone else
and knock uninvited
on a door.
----
And with a hint of what your nakedness might offer,
you came down tonight
to save another human being.
And after, like the migratory wings
that swarmed in to eat the berry-tree,
you moved on.
Here is what happens, when the heart wakes up:
on Halloween, according to the law of sadness,
a man-child comes to our door in costume,
and makes us cry.
And, according to the law of joy,
we open that door,
and a great wind
full of snow
turns us.
to be alone. Sometimes, I wish that my basic pain
could melt into the sadness of another.
Sometimes, I wish that when I light a cigar,
my whole body would catch flame.
Sometimes, as if bonding is an emergency,
I turn into someone else
and knock uninvited
on a door.
----
And with a hint of what your nakedness might offer,
you came down tonight
to save another human being.
And after, like the migratory wings
that swarmed in to eat the berry-tree,
you moved on.
Here is what happens, when the heart wakes up:
on Halloween, according to the law of sadness,
a man-child comes to our door in costume,
and makes us cry.
And, according to the law of joy,
we open that door,
and a great wind
full of snow
turns us.
11.28.2010
Lucretius ( 99 B.C. - 55 B.C. )
On the Nature of Things
I
Darling of Gods and Men, beneath the gliding stars
you fill rich earth and buoyant sea with your presence
for every living thing achieves its life through you,
rises and sees the sun. For you the sky is clear,
the tempests still. Deft earth scatters her gentle flowers,
the level ocean laughs, the softened heavens glow
with generous light for you. In the first days of spring
when the untrammelled all renewing southwind blows
the birds exult in you and herald your coming.
Then the shy cattle leap and swim the brooks for love.
Everywhere, through all seas, mountains and waterfalls,
love caresses all hearts and kindles all creatures
to overmastering lust and ordained renewals.
Therefore, since you alone control the sum of things
and nothing without you comes forth into the light
and nothing beautiful or glorious can be
without you, Alma Venus! Trim my poetry
with your grace: and give peace to write and read and think.
translated from Latin by Basil Bunting
I
Darling of Gods and Men, beneath the gliding stars
you fill rich earth and buoyant sea with your presence
for every living thing achieves its life through you,
rises and sees the sun. For you the sky is clear,
the tempests still. Deft earth scatters her gentle flowers,
the level ocean laughs, the softened heavens glow
with generous light for you. In the first days of spring
when the untrammelled all renewing southwind blows
the birds exult in you and herald your coming.
Then the shy cattle leap and swim the brooks for love.
Everywhere, through all seas, mountains and waterfalls,
love caresses all hearts and kindles all creatures
to overmastering lust and ordained renewals.
Therefore, since you alone control the sum of things
and nothing without you comes forth into the light
and nothing beautiful or glorious can be
without you, Alma Venus! Trim my poetry
with your grace: and give peace to write and read and think.
translated from Latin by Basil Bunting
9.18.2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
