We present this work in honor of the 75th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Óscar Castro Zúñiga Chilean 1910 – 1947
I.
I will start to live in each rose And in each lily that your eyes will see And in every bird trill I’ll sing your name So that you‘ll never forget me.
II.
If you cry as you contemplate the stars And your soul fills with impossibilities, It’s because my loneliness has come to kiss you So that you’ll never forget me.
III.
I will paint a rose colored horizon And I will paint blue wallflowers And I will guild the moon on your hair So that you’ll never forget me.
IV.
If asleep you sweetly walk Through a world of diaphanous gardens, Think of my heart that dreams of you, So that you’ll never forget me.
V.
And if some evening, at a far away altar, You hold another’s hand, and you are blessed, When the golden ring is placed on your finger, My soul will be an invisible tear In the eyes of the moribund Christ So that you’ll never forget me!
My soul cries out, Snared by the beauty Of the formless one. As I cry by myself, Night and day, Beauty amassed before my eyes Surpasses numberless moons and suns. If I look at the clouds in the sky, I see his beauty afloat; And I see him walk on the stars Blazing my heart
We present this work in honor of the Turkish holiday, Republic Day.
Yahya Kemal Beyatli Turkish 1884 – 1958
The great Itri has of old been called The Patron of our music; How he leads the people far and near, That conqueror of the day-break, On how many holiday mornings early Rattling the heavens with their voices massed together, Have they chanted the magnificent Tekbir. From Budapest to Iraq, even unto Egypt, From the furthest conquered lands, The breeze free-flowing o’er the homeland, Brought with it sound from every blossoming spring. This man of genius collected them So that from the plane trees he heard us, Heard our tale of seven centuries. In his music flowed on one hand Faith, On the other, all of Life; From every side that brightness of the city, the Bosphorus Flowed with the blue Tunca, and proud Euphrates. With what voices, with our sky and earth, With our sadness, our passion, our victories, Flowed that creation, which resembled us. How many times have I listened to the Neva-Kâr, A refrain which is both broad and lively: While scattering the secrets of the mode Neva, Brightness shines from the horizons of the Orient; Drunk with every syllable of his words, By night, one by one they set out, Toward the dawn go fifty million souls. But Chance and Fortune enviously Have hidden more than a thousand of his works, As his inheritance there remain to us but twenty. His Hymn to the Prophet, most awesome and profound, Then appear the flute and kettle-drum, And while the turning of the dervishes grows wilder, His liturgy ascends the seven-tiered Celestial Throne. He who was the master of a splendid world Of voice and string, Remains to us a mystery. Our learned men know not, who was he? Who hides his works today? Are they a treasure kept by Eternity? Does someone know? Where might they be today? Death, which covers up such music Leaves no consolation to mankind. My heart still is blind As in exile it passes many hours, It falls into a pleasant revery: Perhaps those compositions are yet played, On an Ocean which never ship shall pass.
The heavenly battles descend on the soil and death returns to earth: its place of origin. High flashes accompany it; it is the only luxury left to the corpses. Indeed, how did evil change direction! From below, its immediate action would start: from mud, hoofs of animals boots, swamps and it would rise up to the black clouds and the innocent souls. Now the desert, as I imagine it with countless pink shades sand breasts breathing in the desert wind a secret body with its dark oases hidden under impartial spectator of disaster conquered by parachutes. From above downwards now the evolution of bleeding flesh; heaven a past in flames will be forgotten and the good will be thrust in the earth buried deep, very deep in memory.
I did not come on this earth as a seed, To fall in the circle of births, I am not the elements Earth, water, fire, air and ether I am beyond the primordial universal self and the individual self, I am the Supreme Consciousness.
To pose in my hand – I invite the landscape, invite it to call itself into question, and then give to it a dream of abyss for ingestion, in the spiral hand of heavens with a human shape.
That by loosening the moorings in the river the mountain to its marbles will speak so that a frozen sigh leading to its peak might hold the worth of fruit in a double summer.
To the cloud, I might proselytize the risks posed by height and morning light, then argue that the low tide is not on the rise, but rather every hour, set alight.
To make a shadow tame within a rosebush, at its very gut (To add to love what is subtracted on its name and feed the remains to a dovecote of naught).
What if the sea might abandon its pearls and then step out its shell… ! What would happen to these frothy swirls if instead of splashing all over, they lay forgotten?
Who knows if the stone that at every turn is a wonder, to join the exact exedra would be prone, fountain-garden-love-tumbler.
What if the benign lane that comes, goes and is, becomes impassable on account of a blunder without aim: a magnetic waterfall that rendered it pliable.
Will the trees be able to put in motion all their elementary schools of chirping? (I feel my desires go mixing and mingling Like townspeople at a wedding celebration).
Over there, the river is a boy, but it is a man here, One that gathers dark leaves in a creek. Everybody calls him by his name, without sneer and strokes him like a dog, one that is meek.
Which season should my guests want to get off at? In autumn or in springtime? Or will they wait till the foliage speaks of harvests like an angel announcing apples at its prime?
And when the guests finally arrive – within myself –, the gentleness to which every corner of my being attests shall leave them alone and, as a sign of happiness, will show a set of ten fingers that rests untouched but by poetry, alone.
Poets Corner 