No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.
It’s flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn’t keep up with it,
Not if I ran.
But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.
And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.
So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes…
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.
I dreamt of a Poet last night
with gentle touch announcing:
“Let your FROST be warmed by my sun
it will liquefy, leaving your grasses
and your webs bejeweled
for it is water that defines your land
let a moisture laden air
be caught by muscular mountains
to be cooled, as it rises,
dropping its rain down your slopes
lush with ferns and mosses
that sprout ephemeral waterfalls
let the first drops snake around my trees:
your streams dipping beneath toppled trunks
kissing the forest floor in twisting threads
running along a rich carpet of greens
let me find at your sacred place — especially
your extravagance of greens…
let me pick my way
along your shore of boulders
to pluck them from the mountains
in ribbons, the waters shall find
the gateways to fertile land
let the mighty glacier busy himself
hollowing out a bed for your lake
and surrender… for across this lake
the clouds shall dance like gauzy curtains
hiding, then revealing the wonder and power
of your land’s coastlines”
[And I did. I surrendered]
At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected,
I shall forgive last the delicately wounded
who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else,
never got up again, neither to fight back,
nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration.
They who are wholly broken, and they in whom
mercy is understanding, I shall embrace at once
and lead to pillows in heaven. But they who are
the meek by trade, baiting the best of their betters
with the extortions of a mock-helplessness
I shall take last to love, and never wholly.
Let them all into Heaven—I abolish Hell—
but let it be read over them as they enter:
“Beware the calculations of the meek, who gambled nothing,
gave nothing, and could never receive enough.”
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we present one of the most widely loved celebrations of erotic romance in poetic history.
Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
You have moonlines, applepathways:
Naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.
Naked, you are blue as the night in Cuba;
You have vines and stars in your hair;
Naked, you are spacious and yellow
As summer in a golden church.
Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails,
Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
And you withdraw to the underground world,
as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 140th birthday.
Queen Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,
Around her countless treasures were spread;
Her chamber walls were richly inlaid
With agate, porphory, onyx and jade;
The tissues that veiled her delicate breast,
Glowed with the hues of a lapwing’s crest;
But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed
“O King, my heart is unsatisfied.”
King Feroz bent from his ebony seat:
“Is thy least desire unfulfilled, O Sweet?
“Let thy mouth speak and my life be spent
To clear the sky of thy discontent.”
“I tire of my beauty, I tire of this
Empty splendour and shadowless bliss;
“With none to envy and none gainsay,
No savour or salt hath my dream or day.”
Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose:
“Give me a rival, O King Feroz.”
II
King Feroz spoke to his Chief Vizier:
“Lo! ere to-morrow’s dawn be here,
“Send forth my messengers over the sea,
To seek seven beautiful brides for me;
“Radiant of feature and regal of mien,
Seven handmaids meet for the Persian Queen.”
. . . . .
Seven new moon tides at the Vesper call,
King Feroz led to Queen Gulnaar’s hall
A young queen eyed like the morning star:
“I bring thee a rival, O Queen Gulnaar.”
But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:
“O King, my heart is unsatisfied.”
Seven queens shone round her ivory bed,
Like seven soft gems on a silken thread,
Like seven fair lamps in a royal tower,
Like seven bright petals of Beauty’s flower
Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose
“Where is my rival, O King Feroz?”
III
When spring winds wakened the mountain floods,
And kindled the flame of the tulip buds,
When bees grew loud and the days grew long,
And the peach groves thrilled to the oriole’s song,
Queen Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,
Decking with jewels her exquisite head;
And still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:
“O King, my heart is unsatisfied.”
Queen Gulnsar’s daughter two spring times old,
In blue robes bordered with tassels of gold,
Ran to her knee like a wildwood fay,
And plucked from her hand the mirror away.
Quickly she set on her own light curls
Her mother’s fillet with fringes of pearls;
Quickly she turned with a child’s caprice
And pressed on the mirror a swift, glad kiss.
Queen Gulnaar laughed like a tremulous rose:
“Here is my rival, O King Feroz.”
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.
I spend my nights asleep
Upon your face.
In the steppe of your body
I plant cedar and almond trees.
Tirelessly I search your chest
For Pharao’s golden pleasures.
But your lips are heavy, and
My miracles cannot deliver them.
Please lift your snowy skies
Off my soul –
Your diamond dreams
Slice through my veins.
I am Joseph, I wear a sweet belt
Around my many-colored skin.
The frightened thunder in my shells
Is bliss to you.
But your heart is closed to oceans.
Oh you!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
I have a friend
who is turning gray,
not just her hair,
and I do not know
why this is so.
Is it a lack of vitamin E
pantothenic acid, or B-12?
Or is it from being frantic
and alone?
‘How long does it take you to love someone?’
I ask her.
‘A hot second,’ she replies.
‘And how long do you love them?’
‘Oh, anywhere up to several months.’
‘And how long does it take you
to get over loving them?’
‘Three weeks,’ she said, ‘tops.’
Did I mention I am also
turning gray?
It is because I *adore* this woman
who thinks of love
in this way.
More than through skin, more than through sex
Unease is something that becomes clear through language
Something that makes me particular
There were no accentual modulations in that language
Surrounded by accentless speakers
I couldn’t carry on a conversation
I was illiterate too
I abhorred written language
Their accentless addresses frightened me
Didn’t feel directed toward me
If I answered, my language
Sounded ugly, sounded deformed
I could not erase that
When I catch the delicate nuances of accent
In the language he learned in a land far away
I wanted to wash it all away
Language spoken aloud is all mine
Knowledge
Emotions
Time, things we eat
Even if under the influence of others
Even if under the control of others
Even if the language he writes is understood only by others far away
The language that enters my ears, comes out my mouth
And disappears is all my own
Something I want to claim
Even if wet with my saliva
As I scrub him late at night
I imagine washing all that accentless language
From his skin of his freckled back
Dee suiiteshita retoru omen (the sweetest little woman)
He taught me this once
De suiiteshita meen (the sweetest man)
I imitated him
Parroted language
One breath, then another
He was a strange frog, a cricket
Pronouncing with ease
But first he taught me
Nashite mounen (nasty morning)
Next ae habu eten purente (I have eaten plenty)
Next ae an nata hangure (I am not hungry)
Next yu aara nata hangure (you are not hungry)
I touched his language that day for the first time
When I did
I was jealous of language
With it he is connected to the world outside
He writes, people read, that remains
But just then, he spoke to me in his language that remains
Just like my language
His is voiced then disappears
Even if relationships disappear there
Even if memory disappears there
This language, voiced and disappearing, is suiito
I wanted to study and understand his language
Even if only like those boys
It makes me sigh with regret
Still, the words I spoke made him crazy
He said he thought about them for ages
My language threatened
The freckles on his back
They moved, they squirmed
For his thick arms, how light
I must have been, like an imp or fairy
My language percolated through his voice then became free
Taking on the heat and scent of his body
It coiled around me then disappeared
Through language
He dug into me
Searched for me
So heavy from the imps and fairies settled there
Searching out
And finding
My skin
My lips
When it rains it seems the room itself turns blue, trembles
and falls like rain, as if endless time coming from nowhere
fills the room, as if endless wind blowing in
carries the room to the riverbank;
turning into a boat, I float
I get soaked; swaying, shivering, I keep
moving; in the distance one can see the line where
the river meets the sea, as if
all around waves hiss, as if there’s nobody around
anywhere as if a profound sobbing chokes the throat
as if terrifying harsh sobs strangle
the room – By what strange magic
the ten directions sparkle in a moment,
as if everything will revert
to its real shape, as if all is a dance,
all is rhythm, all is tinted light –
Awakening and seeing the rain, sometimes it’s
like this, then I pray Oh sky
break up the room and give me more rain!
Poets Corner 