We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Meira Delmar Colombian 1922 – 2009
There’s nothing like this bliss of feeling so alone in mid-afternoon and in the middle of the wheat field; under the summer sky and in the arms of the wind I am one more ear of wheat.
I have nothing in my soul,not even a small sorrow, nor an old remembrance that would make me dream… I only have this bliss of being alone in the afternoon, just with the afternoon!
A very long silence is falling on the field, for already the sun is leaving and already the wind is leaving; who would give me forever this inexpressible bliss of being, alone and serene, a miracle of peace!
We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Revolution Day.
Amal Al Akhdar Moroccan 21st century
Do not open the windows wide… Outside… there are things With no names, Transcending the space in the air . The trees bow its length to it, The sun… shrinks to itself… It was blinded by its light She backed up sighing Outside… The dust assumes the forms of humans, Licking the buildings… the pavement Ivy climbing… The small café at the end of the street Do not open the windows wide… Let them be closed. The descents of Tatars are coming The bells are tolled from afar… And the sky is growls and rumbles The windmills… Hardly stop Electricity poles on the wall Bend… Crackling and neighing Horses struck by panic, And they chose to leave Do not open the windows wide .. Your dreams may fall On the pavement And the climbing bulldozer may smash you Or your heavy bodies may fall. Do not ask about a beloved who did not return Nor a kid of yours in school Do not buy morning bread… Nor Newspaper Do not greet your neighbor as usual… Do not fix the clock’s hands No, no do not open the windows Hide behind it on oblique chairs Enjoy polishing an old coat Or caress the backs of luxurious cats Or sip evening tea Or laugh on the impact of an insipid joke Do not open wide the windows wide… Swarms of swallows Kidnap their small bodies, And flee dripping The tree shake their roots, Wishing they would to fly. But they only swallow their disappointments And remain a witness of current events Crackle of imminent thunder The specters of the death… Leaving their long slumber Grumbling… And moaning As if… horses of resurrection Are coming
O dark one, with beautiful eyes, have mercy on me, my birth is low, my reputation black as night.
O dark one, with beautiful eyes, please, have mercy on me. The Vedas proclaim you champion of the low savior of the downtrodden like me. Kanhopatra surrenders again and again, O dark one, have mercy on me.
Either carrying shells as gifts
From the Erythaian cliff
Or halcyon chicks still unwinged
Presents for the girl from an anxious man.
His Siren girl neighbor felt pity
For he was swimming toward that beach
And the regions close to Aitna.
I see again and again in my eyes the smile flit over your cheekbones Reach like a tendril to caress your face in those lean days that startled do you rejoice that life does not slaughter our dreams our secret thoughts on its butcher bench of time that we gather to ourselves the scraps and bones our dismembered being hoard to nurse them that death may not out-stare us?
A mountain brook Babbling is all I hear Over the many-stoned palace Swift as the current would I return to the days I saw it-how I wish it could be so!
Rain has come, and fields and fruit trees sing, Spring has come, and Love, the Lord of Spring, Dandelions have lifted up their faces, Cold has gone and every wintry thing! Forget-me-not the forest graces, Iris and the lily spring will bring. Gather violets, O Narcissus, Winter’s ashes from our door I fling! The water bird the lake embraces, How can frost upon your petals cling?
He wraps me in his fine beak and his wounding tongue.
Shakes me with the tireless beating of his wings. I pulse in his rushing heart. Sleep on the heights of his forest.
As a flower, I rest on the blinding brightness of his plumage.
My hummingbird hurls himself against the bell tower of my body. Rips petals from my flesh. Invents a song with the music of his unblinking eyes and the fierceness of his flight.
He flies through the garden.
Comes and goes among the flowered paths, searching for the abyss of bitter honey.
He dies and is reborn where frost falls, covering the world of my pollen.
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