We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.
Maria Luisa Carnelli Argentine 1898 – 1987
Life is fleeting, is fleeting and will never return. Listen to my advice: if a rich man promises you a good life, you must accept it. Life is fleeting, fleeting, and not even God will stop it. The best you can do is to enjoy life and forget your sorrows and pains. The days and the years elapse and happiness is elusive. You must not think either of suffering or of virtue: you must fully live your youth.
The king on the rampart flies the white flag. Deep within the palace how could I know? One hundred forty thousand all disarmed! Among these there was not a single man?
In a white gully among fungus red Where serpent logs lay hissing at the air, I found a kangaroo. Tall dewy,dead, So like a woman, she lay silent there. Her ivory hands, black-nailed, crossed on her breast Her skin of sun and moon hues, fallen cold her brown eyes lay like rivers come to rest And death had made her black mouth harsh and old Beside her in the ashes I sat deep And mourned for her, but had no native song To flatter death, while down the ploughlands steep Dark young Camelli whistled loud and long, ‘Love, liberty and Italy are all.’ Broad golden was his breast against the sun I saw his wattle whip rise high and fall Across the slim mare’s flanks, and one by one She drew the furrows after her as he Flapped like a gull behind her, climbing high Chanting his oaths and lashing soundingly, While from the mare came once a blowing sigh. The dew upon the kangaroo’s white side Had melted. Time was whirling high around, Like the thin woomera, and from heaven wide He, the bull-roarer, made continuous sound Incarnate lay my country by my hand: Her long hot days, bushfires, and speaking rains Her mornings of opal and the copper band Of smoke around the sunlight on the plains. Globed in fire-bodies the meat- ants ran to taste her flesh and linked us as we lay, Forever Australian, listening to a man From careless Italy, swearing at our day. When golden-lipped, the eagle-hawks came down Hissing and whistling to eat of lovely her And the blowflies with their shields of purple brown Plied hatching to and fro across her fur, I burnt her with the logs, and stood all day Among the ashes, pressing home the flame Till woman, logs and dreams were scorched away And native with the night, that land from whence they came.
So far, all over the world, women have survived it. Perhaps it was that our grandmothers were stoic or, that back then, they weren’t entitled to complain, still they reached old age wilting bodies but strong souls. Now, instead, dissertations are written on the subject. As early as thirty agony sets in, Foretelling the catastrophe.
A body is much more than the sum of its hormones. Menopausal or not a woman remains a woman, beyond the production of secretions or eggs. To miss a period does not imply the loss of syntax or coherence; it shouldn’t lead to hiding as a snail in a shell, nor provoke endless brooding. If depression sets in it won’t be a new occurrence, each menstrual cycle has come to us with tears and its load of irrational anger. There is no reason, then, to feel devalued: Get rid of tampons and sanitary napkins! Use them to light a bonfire in your garden! Be naked Dance the ritual of aging And survive Like so many Before you.
Oh, women of this land! There is no life, nothing. This is nothing but failure and grief. Death for us is hundred times Better than such a life. This life is nothing But a symbol of slavery. Beware, women of this land! Be friends to one another! Dissolve your links with men! Why do you take on the name of Your husband, though you have A name of your own?
O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live. True love is life’s true end, My heart can comprehend, And therefore I intend My love unceasingly to give. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love lends me confidence, Grants conscience calmer sense, Builds patient competence, Forms faith and hope restorative; O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love is my victory, Honor, gleaming glory; Fashions me his story Of pleasure’s daily narrative. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love has such lovely grace That when I see his face I find a tranquil place For fervent years contemplative. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love offers deep content: With his care provident And arm omnipotent, I need no aid alternative. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love draws me lovingly, Attracts with gloom, then glee, Charms me with misery. Alas! His changes I misgive. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love spreads his wings to fly, Calls me to gratify Him by pursuit; I sigh, And hurry toward the fugitive. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Love, to secure my heart, Falls in my arms by art, And then away will dart In dalliance provocative. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
My joy without a peer Inspires such songful cheer, I cry to every ear, “Love love, or lapse insensitive!” O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
Shepherdesses gracious, For Love be amorous, Thereby more rapturous Than queens of high prerogative. O shepherdess, my friend, On love alone I live.
We present this work in honor of the 1,320th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Empress Jitō Japanese 645 – 703
Oh, the autumn foliage Of the hill of Kamioka! My good Lord and Sovereign Would see it in the evening And ask of it in the morning. On that very hill from afar I gaze, wondering If he sees it today, Or asks of it tomorrow. Sadness I feel at eve, And heart-rending grief at morn – The sleeves of my coarse-cloth robe Are never for a moment dry.
We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Proclamation of Independence.
Touria Majdouline Moroccan b. 1960
I gather my confusion and my things My steps And the remaining illusions Of my body I run beyond time Beyond the vacant air And space
Yesterday I drew my open space here And dreamed a lot I sowed shade, and fruit, and crops around And with flames I wrote my poems… Yesterday I had plenty of time To embroider space with words. But today I am left with nothing But my dejection And the crumbs of yesterdays gone by
Thus I gather my things I wrap myself up in my own confusion And I run I run beyond time I propagate into the distance With neither shade Nor sun.