The Storm and the Bush

There are only two things in the world –
The storm in the air and the stretch of green leaves;
The flesh of the forest that quivers and heaves
As the blast on its bosom is hurled.
Above is the whip of the wind
That scourges the cowering forest beneath:
The Storm spits the hiss of the hail from his teeth,
And leaves the world writhing behind!
Like a beast that is bound in a cage
When the keeper’s lash lights and the keeper’s goad stings,
Each tree his great limbs to his torturer flings
In a groaning and impotent rage.
As the leaves to a fiercer gust lean
The wind throws their undersides upward to sight,
And the foam of the forest-sea flashes to white
Out over full fathoms of green.

Mount of Olives

Sweet, sacred hill! on whose fair brow
My Saviour sate, shall I allow
Language to love,
And idolize some shade, or grove,
Neglecting thee? such ill-plac’d wit,
Conceit, or call it what you please,
Is the brain’s fit,
And mere disease.

Cotswold and Cooper’s both have met
With learnèd swains, and echo yet
Their pipes and wit;
But thou sleep’st in a deep neglect,
Untouch’d by any; and what need
The sheep bleat thee a silly lay,
That heard’st both reed
And sheepward play?

Yet if poets mind thee well,
They shall find thou art their hill,
And fountain too.
Their Lord with thee had most to do;
He wept once, walk’d whole nights on thee:
And from thence—His suff’rings ended—
Unto glory
Was attended.

Being there, this spacious ball
Is but His narrow footstool all;
And what we think
Unsearchable, now with one wink
He doth comprise; but in this air
When He did stay to bear our ill
And sin, this hill
Was then His Chair.

Confinement

We have become eagles
who glaze over the information peaks
from sunrise to sunset
trumpeted in all languages, in colors,
in plumes of sweetness and vigor
masters of the dreamlike airs…

Today we are lions
who roar their fury of life
or spread out, troubled in the sunlight
of their screens, watching the family
of the world, waiting for the best
and theories in the wind

But who would have believed it?
by the glow of virtual campfires
for a reconstructed holiday,
the shadows of the past took pity
and before disappearing,
they turned us into griffins.

Penance

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.

My lover died a century ago,
Her dear heart stricken by my sland’rous breath,
Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know
The peace of death.

Men pass my grave, and say, “‘Twere well to sleep,
Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!”
How should they know the vigil that I keep,
The tears I shed?

Upon the grave, I count with lifeless breath,
Each night, each year, the flowers that bloom and die,
Deeming the leaves, that fall to dreamless death,
More blest than I.

‘Twas just last year—I heard two lovers pass
So near, I caught the tender words he said:
To-night the rain-drenched breezes sway the grass
Above his head.

That night full envious of his life was I,
That youth and love should stand at his behest;
To-night, I envy him, that he should lie
At utter rest.

Fairy Song

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 190th birthday.

The moonlight fades from flower and rose
And the stars dim one by one;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
And the Fairy feast is done.
The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,
And sings to them, soft and low.
The early birds erelong will wake:
‘T is time for the Elves to go.

O’er the sleeping earth we silently pass,
Unseen by mortal eye,
And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float
Through the quiet moonlit sky;–
For the stars’ soft eyes alone may see,
And the flowers alone may know,
The feasts we hold, the tales we tell;
So’t is time for the Elves to go.

From bird, and blossom, and bee,
We learn the lessons they teach;
And seek, by kindly deeds, to win
A loving friend in each.
And though unseen on earth we dwell,
Sweet voices whisper low,
And gentle hearts most joyously greet
The Elves where’er they go.

When next we meet in the Fairy dell,
May the silver moon’s soft light
Shine then on faces gay as now,
And Elfin hearts as light.
Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky
With sunlight soon shall glow.
The morning star shall light us home:
Farewell! for the Elves must go.

London

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 265th birthday.

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

from Madhushala

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.

Harivansh Rai Bachchan
Indian
1907 – 2003

He who has destroyed all the creeds
With fire from his burning breast,
He who quits the temple, mosque and church
A drunken heretic, unblest,
Who sees the snares, and now comes running
From Pandit’s, Priest’s and Mullah’s cunning,
He, and he only, shall today
Be in my House, a welcome Guest.

Poem of Sorrow and Anger

My dwelling is often covered by frost and snow,
The foreign winds bring again spring and summer;

They gently blow into my robes,
And chillingly shrill into my ear;

Emotions stirred, I think of my parents,
Whilst I draw a long sigh of endless sorrows.

Whenever guests visit from afar,
I would often make joy of their tidings;

I lost no time in throwing eager questions,
Only to find that the guests were not from my home town.

My Sighs

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 305th birthday.

My sighs, fly to my sweetheart, I want you to explain
And tell her how I miss her and how I suffer pain.

Stay in her heart and soften her proud look , and then
Do not delay and linger, fly back to me again.

However, you should bring me good news from up above,
and give me her assurance that there is hope for love.

I will not sigh too long for I’m not that kind of man,
Such beauties are not rare, I’ll find another one.

Translation by Alec Vagapov

Call

We present this work in honor of the 75th anniversary of the poet’s death.

I love to go down into the town at the hour when the sky lies close against the horizon like a vast whale. It sinks down into the heart of the street like a worker into his ditch. The bell has swung before the windows and the panes are lit up. It is as though all the eyes of the evening were filled with tears. In an opal the lamps and the day wrestle gently with each other. The advertising signs write to each other, spreading themselves in letters of lava across the face of the buildings. The rope dancers stride over the abyss. A great long legged spider spins its web from the hooks of a bush full of flowers. An acrobat climbs up and throws himself down. Shipwrecked sailors signal foreign vessels. The houses advance like the prows of galleys with all their portholes blazing. Man runs between their golden flames like a waif in a harbor.

Dark and streaming the autos arrive from everywhere, like sharks to the quarry of a great shipwreck, blind to the fulgurant signals of men.

Translation by Kenneth Rexroth

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