tango

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.

Ntozake Shange
American
1948 – 2018

 

loose in the brush pines
my grandfather farmed
learned yiddish to better wash windows
the french windows
the sixteen paned windows
the terraced windows
of a restricted town
he made violins of pine
varnished them tuned them
let music carry his daughters
out of the town
away from the farm that
burned down
scrubby pines brush pines
obliterate the ruins of the barn
the pine needles scratch the air
each time my father wipes the
tears from his cheeks
but not from the windows
there were never streaks
on the windows.

An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 85th birthday.

Les Murray
Australian
1938 – 2019

 

The word goes round Repins, the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.

The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.

The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping

holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.

Some will say, in the years to come, a halo
or force stood around him. There is no such thing.
Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him
but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,
the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us

trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream
who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.

Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit—
and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand
and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;
as many as follow her also receive it

and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,
the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out
of his writhen face and ordinary body

not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,
hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea—
and when he stops, he simply walks between us
mopping his face with the dignity of one
man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.

Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.

Men of Ideas

We present this work in honor of the Jamaican holiday, National Heroes’ Day.

Roger Mais
Jamaican
1905 – 1955

 

Men of ideas outlive their times
An idea held by such a man does not end with his death
His life bleeding away goes down
Into the earth, and they grow like seed
The idea that is not lost with the waste of a single life
Like seed springing up a multitude.

They hanged Gordon from a boom
Rigged in front of the Court House
They hanged him with eighteen others for company
And Jesus had but two
But the ideas for which Gordon lived
Did not hang with him
And the great social revolution for which Jesus died
Did not die with him
Two men they nailed with Jesus side by side
Eighteen went to hang with Gordon from the new-rigged boom
But the idea of equality and justice with Gordon
Went into the ground and sprung up like seed, a multitude

A hundred years the seed was a-growing in the ground
A hundred years is not too long
A hundred years is not too soon
A hundred years is a time and a season
And all things must wait a time and a season
And the time and the season for each growing thing

Is the way, and there is no other

The time and the season of its growing and bearing fruit

Are inherent in the nature of the seed
And inherent in it is its growth and its fruit

And this is the way and there is no other

A hundred years is not too long

For the seed to burst its husk under the ground

And cleave a path and press upward

And thrust a green blade in triumph at the sun
Do not be anxious for the house that is a-building
For the unsown acres under the plough
For all things await a time and a season.

The dream given to one man in the night

Not night nor darkness can call it back again

They hanged George William Gordon for the dream

He had been given in the night
That he carried in his breast
Thinking to put the dream to death
With the man they put to shameful death
But they give immortality to the dream
That time the man is put to death
For the dream is all
It is all of a man that there is and immortal
And all of immortality of a man there is.

A long time ago they hanged George William Gordon
But not so long ago
A log time ago
They put Jesus on the Cross
But not so long
For all things have a time and a season
A long time ago
The pea doves took the sweetwood seeds
And let them fall on the valley bottoms
That are now the virgin forest of the great backlands
Of new timber, a long time
Were the bare rock-spure growing
That is now a matted forest floor
Where the wild birds took and dropped
The little sweet kernels of the tall timbers
A long time ago, but not so long
For all things have a time and a season
And a hundred years is not too long
And a hundred years is not too soon.
They hanged Gordon with eighteen others
They nailed Jesus between two thieves
But the ideas these men lived for did not die with them
A single grain of corn will yield an ear of corn
And an ear of corn in two generations will sow a field
And these things befall between a moon and a moon
All things await a time and a season
And twice a hundred years is not too long
Or twice a hundred years too soon.

The Children of God Have No Roof

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.

María Teresa Sánchez
Nicaraguan
1918 – 1994

 

The children of God have no roof,
and hungry, they wander like specters;
and they are thirsty, and find no shade for their sun.
The pride of small, despotic human gods

rages over them,
who break the harmony of the wind with their noises.

Sow the deserts with wheat,
sweeten the water of the seas;
appease the wrath of God:
he who has built the world
can destroy it.

A Prayer

Giuseppe Giusti
Italian
1809 – 1850

 

For the spirit confused
With misgiving and with sorrow,
Let me, my Saviour, borrow
The light of faith from thee.
O lift from it the burden
That bows it down before thee.
With sighs and with weeping
I commend myself to thee;
My faded life, thou knowest,
Little by little is wasted
Like wax before the fire,
Like snow-wreaths in the sun.
And for the soul that panteth
For its refuge in thy bosom,
Break, thou, the ties, my Saviour,
That hinder it from thee.

Translation by William Dean Howells

As the Sun is About to Set

We present this work in honor of the 405th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Heo Gyun
Korean
1569 – 1618

 

As the sun is about to set,
An old woman is wailing in the ruins of a village.
Her disheveled hair looks as if blighted by frost,
And her eyes are shadowed as if by dusk.
Her husband is in a cold jail cell,
Because he cannot pay off the money he owes,
And her son has gone off with the royal army.
Her house has been burned down to the base of the pillars;
Hiding out in the woods she has lost even her hemp petticoat.
She has no work, she has no wish even to go on living,
Why is the petty clerk of the district calling for her at the gate?

Translation by Peter H. Lee

The Harvest Rain

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.

Maria James
Welsh
1793 – 1868

 

Shine out once more, thou radiant sun,
With noon-day splendours bright!
Break through the clouds which veil thy beams!
Diffuse thy cheering light!

Creation, deluged, weeps in showers;
The dripping flocks repine;
The birds are silent on the boughs;
Shine out, — all glorious shine!

No more they grind; — the sithe, the rake,
Are laid as useless by,
While many a wistful look is turn’d
Towards the western sky.

Wake from the north, ye slumb’ring wind!
Dispel the thick’ning gloom!
Lighten with smiles the brow of care, —
With all your influence come.

The Passage

Christopher Okigbo
Nigerian
1932 – 1967

 

Before you, my mother Idoto,
Naked I stand;
Before your weary presence,
A prodigal
Leaning on an oilbean,
Lost in your legend
Under your power wait I
On barefoot,
Watchman for the watchword
At Heavensgate;
Out of the depth my cry:
Give ear and hearken…
DARK WATERS of the beginning.
Ray, violet, and short, piercing the gloom,
Foreshadow the fire that is dreamed of.
Rainbow on far side, arched like boa bent to kill,
Foreshadow the fire that is dreamed of.
Me to the orangery
Solitude invites,
A wagtail, to tell
The tangled-wood-tale;
A sunbird, to mourn
A mother on spray.
Rain and sun in single combat;
On one leg standing,
In silence at the passage
The young bird at the passage
SILENCE FACES at crossroads:
Festivity in black…
Faces of black like black
Column of ants,
Behind the bell tower,
Into the hot garden
Where all roads meet:
Festivity in black…
O Anan at the knob of the panel oblong,
Hear us at crossroads at the great hinges
Where the players of loft organ
Rehearse old lovely fragment, alone-
Strains of pressed orange leaves on pages
Bleach of the light of years held in leather:
For we are listening in cornfields
Among the wind players,
Listening to the wind leaning over
Its loveliest fragment…