Why Have I Become Detached

Pita Amor
Mexican
1918 – 2000

 

Why have I become detached from the
mysterious and eternal current that I was
cast into, to forever be enslaved
by this tenacious and independent frame?

Why did I become a living being
that carries blood made of lava
and a dark anguish excavated from
knowing that my audacity is powerless?

Thinking of my matter
considering myself absurd and numb,
masqueraded by solitude and by misery,

ludicrous creature of disregard,
a worthless mask from a pointless carnival
and an echo that doesn’t proceed sound!

Zoia

We present this work in honor of the 20th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Rafaela Chacón Nardi
Cuban
1926 – 2001

Immobile, transparent,
with neither blood nor pulsing vein
the grey gaze spent
Zoia is laid out
with the gentle gesture of a wounded dove.

Her tormented skull,
the pupil of her eye asleep in screams.
(When all this has passed
she will return to life
in fruits and grasses.)

Naked, immobile, dead,
budding light and shadows,
with her broad smile
surprising life
in triumph over root and hate and death.

Immobile, transparent,
with the gentle gesture of a wounded woman…
forever with us,
in you, Zoia, burning
on eternal snow:
Life salutes us!

Translation by Margaret Randall

Marshlands

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 160th birthday.

E. Pauline Johnson
Canadian
1861 – 1913

 

A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,
And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh’s brim.

The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould,
Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold.

Among the wild rice in the still lagoon,
In monotone the lizard shrills his tune.

The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering,
Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling.

Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight,
Sail up the silence with the nearing night.

And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil,
Steals twilight and its shadows o’er the swale.

Hushed lie the sedges, and the vapours creep,
Thick, grey and humid, while the marshes sleep.

The Awakening

We present this work in honor of the 145th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Louise Colet
French
1810 – 1876

Winter is over
The earth regains its youth
My love, do you not feel the warm breeze
that caresses us?

Do you not smile
as the sun warms our souls
and quickens our spirit?

Do you not welcome the mist that
disperses the tearful and bitter days
of yore?

No more sad dreams!
Oh let us live in empyrean serenity
whose happy hours will chase away
those long and somber days.

The air is perfumed,
The billowing clouds form intoxicating shapes
Do you not respond to their allure?

Do you not hear whispers that
penetrate your soul and your senses?
The treetops shiver in the woods
the waves and the breezes, all sigh softly.

All of these voices murmur in one voice
to our hearts, saying “love one another.”
My love, let us celebrate nature!
Her awakening will revive us!

Translation by Fern Nesson

To the Tune of the Coventry Carol

We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Stevie Smith
English
1902 – 1971

 

The nearly right
And yet not quite
In love is wholly evil
And every heart
That loves in part
Is mortgaged to the devil

I loved or thought
I loved in sort
Was this to love akin?
To take the best
And leave the rest
And let the devil in?

O lovers true
And others too
Whose best is only better
Take my advice
Shun compromise
Forget him and forget her

Sonnet XIV

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 215th birthday.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
English
1806 – 1861

 

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

You Will Hear Thunder

We present this work in honor of the 55th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Anna Akhmatova
Russian
1889 – 1966

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
when, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

Translation by Donald Michael Thomas

Home

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 145th birthday.

Leon-Paul Fargue
French
1876 – 1947

 

A name, Cromac, makes us speak
Of a dark bay… O death of love,
Be less sad for weeping
Other names, other days

Where you were like the blind man
Looking at the dark red
And playing with his scratched hands
Over the old bench of his childhood…

Like the blind man, when he dreams
And grumbles, and when his heart
Scolds the warm bodied beauty
Watching him, in tears…

Cromac. The House under the branches
Whose window with flower eyes
Separated her long white hands
Gently, noiselessly, over your heart…

I Live on This Depraved and Lonely Cliff

Vittoria Colonna
Italian
1492 – 1547

I live on this depraved and lonely cliff
like a sad bird abhorring a green tree
or splashing water. I move forcefully
away from those I love, and I am stiff
even before myself so that my thoughts
may rise and fly to him: sun I adore
and worship. Though their wings could hurry more,
they race only to him. The forest rots
until the instant when they reach that place.
Then deep in ecstasy, though quick, they feel
a joy beyond all earthly joy. I reel,
and yet if they could recreate his face
as my mind craving and consuming would,
then here perhaps I’d own the perfect good.

Translation by Willis Barnstone