We present this work in honor of the 5th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Lili Bita Greek 1935 – 2018
Asia Minor, 1922
Don’t look at the sun with pleasure. Don’t cry, or even curse. Before you touch the yellowed clippings make a shroud of your palms and tell the story gently.
She lies on the bed. There aren’t any sheets, only a gnawed pillowcase and a mattress stained with urine and feces the only witness of decades of silence.
Don’t look at the sun with pleasure, don’t cry or even curse. Look at the ropes looped double over ankles and wrists tied to the posts, the body spread-eagled as in Da Vinci’s drawing, lashed to the bed.
Look at her puberty, the black camellia plucked from the roots of its innocence, the fragile petals scattered on the bloody pulp, the red trickle threading its decades to reach us.
Look at the torn sky until the girl in the yellowed clipping escapes with a flower in her hand.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.
Nan Shepherd Scots 1893 – 1981
Clear as the endless ecstasy of stars That mount for ever on an intense air; Or running pools, of water cold and rare, In chiselled gorges deep amid the scaurs, So still, the bright dawn were their best device, Yet like a thought that has no end they flow; Or Venus, when her white unearthly glow Sharpens like awe on skies as green as ice:
To such a clearness love is come at last, Not disembodied, transubstantiate, But substance and its essence now are one; And love informs, yet is the form create. No false gods now, the images o’ercast, We are love’s body, or we are undone.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Chava Rosenfarb Canadian 1923 – 2011
I would sew a dress for you, my child, out of tulle made of spring’s joyful green, and gladly crown your head with a diadem made of the sunniest smiles ever seen.
I would fit out your feet with a pair of crystal-like, weightless, dance-ready shoes, and let you step out of the house with bouquets, bright with the promise of pinks and of blues.
But outside it is cold and dreary, my child, the wanton winds lurking unbridled and wild. They will mangle the dress of joy into shreds and sweep the sun’s smiling crown off your head,
Shatter to dust the translucent glass of your shoes and bury in mud the dreams of pinks and of blues. From far away I can hear you call me and moan: “Mother, mother, why did you leave me alone?”
So perhaps I should sew a robe for you, my child, out of the cloak of my old-fashioned pain, and alter my hat of experience for you to shelter you from the ravaging rain?
On your feet I would put my own heavy boots, the soles studded with spikes from my saviourless past and guide your way through the door with a torchlight of wisdom I’ve saved till this hour of dusk.
But outside it is cold and dreary, my child. The wanton winds lurking unbridled and wild will rip up the robe sewn with outdated thread, bare your chest to all danger, to fear bare your head.
The heavy boots will sink in the swamp and will drown, the light of wisdom mocked by the laugh of a clown. From afar I hear you call me and moan: “Mother, mother, why did you leave me alone?”
What a wretched seamstress your mother is— Can’t sew a dress for her child! All she does is prick her clumsy fingers, cross-stitching her soul, while her eyes go blind.
The only thing that I can sew for you, my sweet, my golden child, is a cotton shift of the love I store in my heart. The only thing I can give to light your way are my tears of blessing; I have nothing more.
So I must leave you outside, my child, and leave you there alone. Perhaps dressed in clothing of love you will learn better how to go from home. So I sit here and sew and sew, while in my heart I hope and pray— my hands, unsteady, tremble; my mind, distracted, gone astray.
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?
Poets Corner 