Author: Matthew Baker

Living Out Their Lives in the Jungle

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 110th birthday.

Nagarjun
Indian
1911 – 1998

 

Bhado, glistening
The night of the new moon

What is this sapphire gleam
Scattering its blessings in the jungle
How wondrous is this gift
That, too, in the auspicious rainy season
It seems that they, alone, will triumph
In the arena where power flaunts itself
There are thousands, hundreds of thousands
Who can count them, innumerable are they
Together they glow and shine
Who can say – they burn and perish
Living out their lives in the jungle

These fireflies are lit from within
One moment shining, the next extinguished
How wondrous is this gift
That, too, in the auspicious rainy season
Their triumph is certain
In the arena of the final pilgrimage
Do not call them ‘wretched’
Listen, these are creatures of light
Living out their lives in the jungle

Bhado, glistening
The light of the new moon

In a Hotel Room

06-29 Monvel
Maria Monvel
Argentine
1899 – 1936

 

In a small hotel room, pretty, unknown:
–blue horizons, green lights–,
we entered it together, entranced and flustered
by the impossible fire that we’d conquered.

He kissed me on the mouth, and I surrendered
my fragile body, sweet, desirous & swooning…
Oh inexplicable repose after what had happened!
Oh ineffable delight after what had been suffered!

I didn’t feel shame for my naked body.
Happiness drowned me with a rough hand
and the crystal of my eyes was clouded from tears,

while he on his knees, with furtive kisses,
embraced the ivory of my sensitive feet
with the most ardent fire of his saintly mouth.

 

Translation by Liz Henry

I’ve Seen Fuji

We present this work in honor of the 70th anniversary of the poet’s death.

06-28 Hayashi
Fumiko Hayashi
Japanese
1903 – 1951

 

I’ve seen Fuji
I’ve seen Mount Fuji
there was no red snow
so I need not praise Fuji as a fine mountain.

I’m not going to lose out to such a mountain
many times I’ve thought that,
seeing its reflection in the train window,
the heart of this peaked mountain
threatens my broken life
and looks down coldly on my eyes.

I’ve seen Fuji,
I’ve seen Mount Fuji
Birds!
Fly across that mountain from dome to peak
with your crimson mouths, give a scornful laugh
Wind!
Fuji is a great sorrowful palace of snow,
blow and rage
Mount Fuji is the symbol of Japan
it’s a sphinx
a thick, dream-like nostalgia
a great, sorrowful palace of snow where demons live.

Look at Fuji,
Look at Mount Fuji
in your form painted by Hokusai
I have seen your youthful spark.

But now you’re an old broken-down grave mound
always you turn your glaring eyes to the sky
why do you flee from the murky snow?

Birds, wind
rap on Mount Fuji’s shoulder
so bright and still
it’s not a silver citadel
it’s a great, sorrowful palace of snow that hides misfortune.

Mount Fuji!
Here stands a lone woman who does not lower her head to you
here is a woman laughing scornfully at you.

Mount Fuji, Fuji
your passion like rustling fire
howls and roars
until you knock her stubborn head down
I shall wait, happily whistling.

 

Translation by Janice Brown

Paroxysm

We present this work in honor of the 40th anniversary of the poet’s death.

06-26 Arce
Manuel Maples Arce
Mexican
1900 – 1981

Road of other dreams we leave with the afternoon;
A strange adventure
He defiled us in the bliss of the flesh,
And the heart fluctuates
Between her and the desolation of the journey.

In the agglomeration of the platforms
The sobs broke suddenly;
After, all night
Below my dreams,
I hear their moans
And his entreaties.

The train is a blast of iron
Which sweeps the landscape and moves everything.

I apologize for your memory
All the way
Of ecstasy,
And beat in the chest
The distant colors of his eyes.

Today we will spend the fall
And the prairies shall be yellow.

I shudder for her!
Absence uninhabited horizons!

Tomorrow will be everything
Cloudy from your tears
And the life that comes
It is weak as a breath.

On Moderation in Our Pleasures

06-25 Tabataba
Abu Alcassim Ebn Tabataba
Persian
? – 1027

 

How oft does passion’s grasp destroy
The pleasure that it strives to gain!
How soon the thoughtless course of joy
Is doomed to terminate in pain!

When Prudence would thy steps delay,
She but restrains to make thee blest;
Whate’er from joy she lops away
But heightens and secures the rest.

Wouldst thou a trembling flame expand
That hastens in the lamp to die?
With careful touch, with sparing hand,
The feeding stream of life supply.

But if thy flask profusely sheds
A rushing torrent o’er the blaze,
Swift round the sinking flame it spreads,
And kills the fire it fain would raise.

 

Translation by J.D. Carlyle

The City and the Country

06-24 Al Yusi
Al-Yusi
Moroccan
1631 – 1691

 

Man resorts to the urban mode of living to enjoy commerce and industry,
and all the other techniques his system of living can accommodate,
and also to gain mutual aid, and in view of religious or secular advantages.
In general, all of this can only be achieved by the gathering of many people
likely to furnish the markets, each trade, art, technique, or activity
lending one or more specialists. Now, these conditions are not present
inside a single family, or even inside a single tribe.
They result from the variety of the mix and the size of the mass.
This is so for two reasons. First, because such is the opinion of the collectivity
that takes on those needs. And then, because natural law does not want
a small group to keep the exclusivity of knowledge, or have sole use and possession
of religious or secular advantages, or free itself from other creaturely characteristics
so as to constitute an order proper and useful to itself,
by excluding any consideration of the others.
To the contrary, in His solicitude and wisdom,
God has widely distributed qualifications and advantages among the humans.
Thus it is that one finds a savant among such and such a group, a poet among another,
in yet another an artisan or a merchant, in such manner that mutual aid
can be complete and that everyone can participate in God’s beneficence
by taking on a specific task.

 

Translation by Pierre Joris

Women’s Rights

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 185th birthday.

06-23 Walker
Annie Louisa Walker
Canadian
1836 – 1907

 

You cannot rob us of the rights we cherish,
Nor turn our thoughts away
From the bright picture of a “Woman’s Mission”
Our hearts portray.
We claim to dwell, in quiet and seclusion,
Beneath the household roof,—
From the great world’s harsh strife, and jarring voices,
To stand aloof;—
Not in a dreamy and inane abstraction
To sleep our life away,
But, gathering up the brightness of home sunshine,
To deck our way.

As humble plants by country hedgerows growing,
That treasure up the rain,
And yield in odours, ere the day’s declining,
The gift again;

So let us, unobtrusive and unnoticed,
But happy none the less,
Be privileged to fill the air around us
With happiness;

To live, unknown beyond the cherished circle,
Which we can bless and aid;
To die, and not a heart that does not love us
Know where we’re laid.

Living Life as a Poet

We present this work in honor of the 10th anniversary of the poet’s death.

06-21 Kroetsch
Robert Kroetsch
Canadian
1927 – 2011

 

I hope I can resist. It’s a stupid idea.
What I was thinking was,
I could buy an estate in the Florida Keys,

mix with the Hemingway look-alikes.
I’d have to grow my beard longer.
Too bad I’m a little short of cash.

I suppose I could rent a house
somewhere on the Mexican coast.
They say the prices are right,

if you don’t mind the drug wars.
I can say please in Spanish, Por favor.
Too bad my stomach can’t take jalapenos.

I suppose I could borrow a tent
from one of my camping friends.
A summer on Lake Athabasca.

Not too close to the tar sands.
Commune with nature. Poach a moose.
Too bad I’m afraid of guns.

Well, finally, I suppose I could just stay put
where I am, drink coffee, rewrite this poem.
What a stupid idea. I hope I can resist.