Standing by a Winter Field

In honor of the Korean holiday, Teacher’s Day, we present this work by a Korean poet and teacher.

Oh Sae-young
Korean
b. 1942

 

A person suffering from love
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is fullness
of an empty space, pleasure
of a person giving freely.
A few fallen grains
on a rice paddy after the harvest.

A person mourning separation
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is comfort
in the heaven that eternalizes
these encounters on earth.
The eyes of a pond
looking up at faraway stars.

A person afflicted with longing
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is awareness
that to watch you is to watch me,
to be alone is to be with others.
The scarecrow
watching the empty field alone.

Translation by Chae-Pyong Song and Darcy Brandel

How to Pray While the World Burns

We present this work in honor of Yom Ha-atzmaut.

Hila Ratzabi
Australian
b. 1981

 

Go outside.
Find a patch of grass, sand, dirt.
Sit, kneel, place a hand or just
A finger to the soft earth.
Feel it pulse back.

Open your palms and divine
The words creased between.
Rub the specks of dirt
Between your fingers,
See how they cling to skin,
How they listen in their soft-rough way.

The earth will hold you better
Than God can.
God could not stop the bullets
Or the sale of weapons.
God could not block the open
Synagogue doors.

But we keep saying, Shema,
Listen.
Israel.
Our God is One.
Singular.
Invisible.
Hiding in plain sight.

But listen, Israel, our God is beneath
Our feet, between
Our fingers, coursing
Through our veins.

Our God is trapped
In the poisoned grass,
Where the blood of our brothers cries out,
Where the ants heave centuries on their backs.

Pray to the God who sharpened the tiger’s teeth,
Who stored the roar in its throat.
Pray to the God who gave you lungs and tongue
To sing and groan and hum.

I swear to you
When the leaf shivers in the wind
You have given it chills
From all its listening.

The earth hears your prayer.
There is nowhere for God to hide.
Get down on your knees and let
This precious earth soften for the weight of you.

You are held.
You are heard.
The wind pulls its blanket over your back,
Smooths the hair from your face,
Touches your cheek
With its cool, trembling hands.

Plaza de la Inquición

We present this work in  honor of the poet’s 120th birthday.

Earle Birney
Canadian
1904 – 1995

 

A spider’s body
limp and hairy
appeared at the bottom of my coffee

The waiter being Castilian
said passionately nothing
And why indeed should apologies
be made to me

It was I who was looking in
at the spider
It might be years
before I slipped and drowned
in somebody else’s cup

The Charm of Spring

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

Taraneh Javanbakht
Persian
b. 1974

 

I passed in a garden
with the gaits of the wind.
I saw the owner of garden
with the art of love
in the look of a rose.
The branches of all the
trees were ornamented with
the blossom of the apple.
Bravo, the art of the charm
of the spring. The green
velvet of the grass has
spread its skirt for seeing
the munificence in the
hearts of my companions.
Flowing with the joy, a pond
in the garden took the fishes
that song the love melodies to
the abode of dream. Bravo, the
art of the charm of the spring.

I heard the joy of love in
the clamour of hundred
swallows. Then I saw the
feast of the trees that had
the branches ornamented
with the blossoms of love.
They song together the
melody of unity: bravo
the art of the charm of
the spring.

Sick

We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Shel Silverstein
American
1930 – 1999

 

“I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox
And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke—
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”

The Forties

We present this work in honor of the Russian holiday, Victory Day.

David Samoilov
Russian
1920 – 1990

 

The forties, fateful,
warring, frontline,
with funeral notices,
clattering trains.
The hum of the rails.
All is cold, high and barren.
Their houses have burned —
they’re heading east.
That’s me at the station
in my scruffy wool cap.
The star’s not standard issue —
it’s cut from a can.
Yes, here I am in the world,
skinny, happy, carefree.
I’ve got tobacco in my pouch —
I have a stash of rolling papers.
I joke with the girls,
and limp a little overmuch.
I break my rationed bread in half,
and I know everything on earth.
Imagine! What coincidence —
war, horror, dreams and youth!
And all of it sank deep inside me…
and only later did it wake.
The forties, fateful,
lead and gun smoke…
War wanders through the land.
And we are all so young!

Translation by Boris Dralyuk

The Voice

We present this work in honor of V-E Day.

Robert Desnos
French
1900 – 1945

 

A voice, a voice from so far away
It no longer makes the ears tingle.
A voice like a muffled drum
Still reaches us clearly.

Though it seems to come from the grave
It speaks only of summer and spring.
It floods the body with joy.
It lights the lips with a smile.

I listen. It is simply a human voice
Which passes over the noise of life and its battles
The crash of thunder and the murmur of gossip.

And you? Don’t you hear it?
It says “The pain will soon be over”
It says “The happy season is near.”

Don’t you hear it?

Translation by William Kulik

The Hurricane

We present this work in honor of the 185th anniversary of the poet’s death.

José María Heredia y Heredia
Cuban
1803 – 1839

 

Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh;
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
And lo! On the wings of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.

They darken fast—, and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray,
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane’s distant voice is heard
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.

He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! We bid thee hail.
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent
To clasp the zone of firmament,
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace
From mountain to mountain the visible space.

Darker—still darker! The whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air;
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where’er they dart.
And the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.

What roar is that? ’tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror around.
Ah! Well known woods and mountains and skies,
With the very clouds! Ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek you vainly and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heavens, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.

Translation by William Cullen Bryant