Wishes for 2008

May your laughter be easy and long!

Video kudos Tsiklitsok .

Rumi: “Become the Sky”

Sufi poetry for the New Age by Rumi.

Translation by Coleman Barks, music by the Safri Duo.

Video kudos to rahmama2.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz: “Evening”

Evening

The trees are dark ruins of temples,
seeking excuses to crumble
since who knows when–
their roofs are cracked,
and their doors lost to ancient winds.
And the sky is a priest,
saffron marks on his forehead,
ashes smeared on his body.
He sits by the temples, worn to a shadow, not looking up.

Some terrible magician, hidden behind curtains,
has hypnotized Time
so this evening is a net
in which twilight is caught.
Now darkness will never come–
and there will never be morning.

The sky waits for this spell to be broken,
for History to tear itself from this net,
for Silence to break its chains
so that a symphony of conch shells
may wake up the statues
and a beautiful, dark goddess,
her anklets echoing, may unveil herself.

–Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Translation by Agha Shahid Ali

Agha Shahid Ali: “Not All, Only A Few Return” (After Ghalib)

Not All, Only a Few Return
(after Ghalib)

Just a few return from dust, disguised as roses.
What hopes the earth forever covers, what faces?

I too could recall moonlit roofs, those nights of wine—
But Time has shelved them now in Memory’s dimmed places.

She has left forever, let blood flow from my eyes
till my eyes are lamps lit for love’s darkest places.

All is his—Sleep, Peace, Night—when on his arm your hair
shines to make him the god whom nothing effaces.

With wine, the palm’s lines, believe me, rush to Life’s stream—
Look, here’s my hand, and here the red glass it raises.

See me! Beaten by sorrow, man is numbed to pain.
Grief has become the pain only pain erases.

World, should Ghalib keep weeping you will see a flood
drown your terraced cities, your marble palaces.

—Agha Shahid Ali

Photo credit: Tomb of M. A. Jinnah in Karachi, Pakistan by skasuga

Walt Whitman: “To You”

To You

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me,

why should you not speak to me?

And why should I not speak to you?

–Walt Whitman

Photo credit: Stranger Passing Chinese by Clearly Ambiguous

Billy Collins: “The Parade”

Read by Garrison Keillor.

George Washington: On Toleration

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

August 1790

Photo credit: Based on Give Peace a Chance by naughton321

Matthew Arnold: “Dover Beach”

Pablo Neruda: “Nada Pero Muerte/Nothing But Death”

Nada Pero Muerte
Hay los cementerios que son solos,
sepulcros por completo de los huesos que no hacen un sonido,
el corazón que se mueve a través de un túnel,
en él oscuridad, oscuridad, oscuridad,
como un naufragio morimos el entrar nosotros mismos,
como si nos ahogábamos dentro de nuestros corazones,
como si vivimos cayendo de la piel en el alma.

Y hay cadáveres,
pies hechos de la arcilla fría y pegajosa,
la muerte está dentro de los huesos,
como raspar donde no hay perros,
viniendo hacia fuera de campanas en alguna parte, de sepulcros en alguna parte,
crecimiento en el aire húmedo como los rasgones de la lluvia.

C. P. Cavafy: “Walls”

Walls

With no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they have built walls around me, thick and high.
And now I sit here feeling hopeless.
I can’t think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind–
because I had so much to do outside.
When they were building the walls, how could I have not noticed!
But I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1986)

Translation by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard

Photo credit: 365 Days – Day 18 – Brick Wall by Auntie P

Wallace Stevens: “The Snow Man”

Read by the poet.

Video kudos to demirpla.

Paul Muldoon: “Side Man” & “See If I Care”

Now here’s the real deal.

Posted on YouTube by florektp –kudos!

Thomas Rosenlöcher: “Der Gräber der Arnims/The Graves of the Arnims”

Der Gräber der Arnims umgittert.
Kein Blatt, keine Ranke, O Preußen.
Der Schritt knirscht auf dem Kies.

Einen Steinwurf witer die Wagen
der immer noch Lebenden.
Matt schimmern Stoßstangen herüber.

Es gibt kein Erinnern.  Nur dieses
Gegeneinander der Zeiten.
Kein Schritt kennt den anderen.

Aber der Wald ist ein eiserner Warter.
Und weiß den Weg in das Schloß.
Und wird in den Fenstern die Laubfahnen hissen.

Ja, auch die Lieben sind nur eine Zeit
vorausgefahrn auf dem Weg in die Zeit,
in der alle Zeiten ausruhn.

Thomas Rosenlöcher

The Graves of Achim and Bettina von Arnim

Iron railings enclose their graves.
Not a leaf, not a tendril.  Oh Prussia.
Footsteps crunch on the gravel.

A stone’s throw away the cars
of those who are still alive.
A dull shimmering of bumpers.

There is no remembering.
Only these conflicting times.
One step doesn’t know the next.

But the woods are patient as iron.
They know their way into the castle
hoisting banners of leaves at the windows.

Yes, even loved-ones have gone ahead
for a time on the path into time
in which all times are at rest.

Translation by Tessa Ransford

Photo credit: Beech Trees by  dhyasama

Gertrude Stein: “Nothing Elegant”

NOTHING ELEGANT.

A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest.

Gertrude Stein (from Tender Buttons)

Photo credit: The Idea of Redness by mondoagogo

Muriel Rukeyser: “Rune”

 

Rune

The word in the bread feeds me,
The word in the moon leads me,
The word in the seed breeds me,
The word in the child needs me.

The word in the sand builds me,
The word in the fruit fills me,
The word in the body mills me,
The word in the war kills me.

The word in the man takes me,
The word in the storm shakes me,
The word in the work makes me,
The word in the woman rakes me,
The word in the word wakes me.

Muriel Rukeyser (b. 15 December 1913)

Photo credit: Detail from photo of  scania codex