A Mother’s Blessing

We present this work in honor of Losar.

Mahāpajāpatī Gotami
Indian
600 BC – 480 BC

Buddha! Hero! Praise be to you!
You foremost among all beings!
You who have released me from pain,
And so many other beings too.

All suffering has been understood.
The source of craving has withered.
Cessation has been touched by me
On the noble eight-fold path.

I’ve been mother and son before;
And father, brother — grandmother too.
Not understanding what was real,
I flowed-on without finding [peace].

But now I’ve seen the Blessed One!
This is my last compounded form.
The on-flowing of birth has expired.
There’s no more re-becoming now.

See the gathering of followers:
Putting forth effort, self controlled,
Always with strong resolution
—This is how to honor the Buddhas!

Surely for the good of so many
Did Maya give birth to Gotama,
Who bursts asunder the mass of pain
Of those stricken by sickness and death.

Translation by Andrew Olendzki

Simple Singer

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.

José Eustasio Rivera
Colombian
1888 – 1928

Simple singer of a great discontent,
Among the shrubs the canopy keeps hidden,
Troubling the foliage with soft lament,
Nibbling myrtle, sour grape pips – wood pigeon!

Sings coo-roo-roo, glimpsing day’s first ascent
And later evening’s brief reflected vision,
Sees from the gúaimaro’s¹ overspreading tent
Silent peace fill the slopes, that tree’s dominion.

Half-open the wings iridescent in the light,
Solitude – poor soul! – saddens its delight,
And it fluffs up its head feathers, a light hood.

To the maternal heartbeat of domains it holds
In its own entrails, it croons to mountains, folds
Them in sleep; light drowns in a dark wood.

Translation by Ranald Barnicot and Felipe Botero Quintana

Adagio

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

Your slow desolation, you coal
of delirium, puts my soul
into mourning. Yet a phrase
of black notes transforms my sigh
into a heavenly butterfly.

The taste of fresh rose petals
intoxicates my arid tongue,
and moistens my song unsung:
my naïve happiness in the loss above
only to find the lips of my love.

Themes of love, my humble flute
will sing in praise.
I am pale yet happy all my days,
and in the evening, as the piragua sails,
marking the water with childlike nails,
my sweetheart will sing the same salute.

Translation by John H. Reid

The Digger’s Daughter

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 175th birthday.

The waratah has stained her cheek,
Her lips are even brighter,
Like virgin quartz without a streak
Her teeth are, but far whiter.
Her eyes are large arid soft and dark,
And clear as running water;
And straight as any stringy bark
Is Lil, the digger’s daughter.

She’ll wash a prospect quick and well,
And deftly rise the ladle;
The weight of gold at sight she’ll tell,
And work with tub and cradle.
She was her father’s only mate,
And wound up wash and water,
She worked all day and studied late,
For all she knows he taught her.

She stood to wait the word below.
A test for woman, rather;
When I sprang to the windlass bow,
And helped her land her father,
She turned her pretty face on me
To thank me, and I thought her
The grandest girl of all her race
Sweet Lil, the digger’s daughter.

And when my luck began to change
I grew a trifle bolder,
And told my love, but it was strange
She knew before I told her.
She said that she would be my wife,
Then home I proudly brought her,
To be my loving mate for life,
But still the digger’s daughter.

Pax Vobiscum

We present this work in honor of the 125th anniversary of the poet’s death.

In a forest, far away,
One small creeklet, day by day,
Murmurs only this sad lay:
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’

One old box-tree bends his head,
One broad wattle shades her bed,
One lone magpie mourns the dead:
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’

Echoes come on every breeze,
Sighing through the ancient trees,
Whisp’ring in their melodies:
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’

Mellow sunbeams, morn and eve,
Quick to come and slow to leave,
Kiss the quilt where daisies weave
Rich designs o’er Lilian.

When the dying blossoms cling
To the skirts of parting Spring,
Wattle-boughs and branches fling
Showers of gold o’er Lilian.

When the Summer moon mounts high,
Queen of all the speckless sky,
Shafts of silver softly lie
O’er the grave of Lilian.

Mystic midnight voices melt
Through each leafy bower and belt,
Round the spot where friends have knelt—
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’

Far away from town and tower,
Sleeping in a leafy bower,
Withered lies the forest flower—
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’

There, where passions ne’er intrude,
There, where Nature has imbued
With her sweets the solitude,
Rests the form of Lilian.

Dear old forest o’er the sea,
Home of Nature’s euphony,
Pour thy requiem psalmody
O’er the grave of Lilian.

Guard that daisy-quilted sod:
Thou hast there no common clod;
Keep her ashes safe; for God
Makes but few like Lilian.

Sceptics ask me: ‘Is that clay
In the forest far away
Part of her?’—I only say:
‘Flow’rets breathe out Lilian;

‘From her grave their sweets mount high—
Love and beauty never die—
Sun and stars, earth, sea and sky
All partake of Lilian.

Spring in Jallianwala Bagh

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

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan
Indian
1904 – 1948

Here are no nightingales, but crows crow loud
Dark, black moths make for hum of the beetles
The buds too in half-bloom, meet with thorns here
Those plants, those flowers, are dry or scorched

Fragrance-less pollen is rotting into oblivion
Ha! This lovely garden lies all drenched with blood
Come, dear spring, but come quietly
This is a mourning-place, so cause no commotion

Let the breeze blow, but only mild
So it blows away not, the sorrowful sighs
Nightingale may sing, but only a dirgeful tune
Buzzing beetles here be telling a tale so tough

Bring along flowers, but let hues be not too bright
The fragrance be mild, somewhat wet with dew
But do not carry them with a gifting intention
She just a few for the prayers in memory

Gentle boys have succumbed to bullets here
Bring and lay down here for them a few buds
Hearts full of hopes have also been pierced here
Dear families of ours, have departed from the nation

So make offerings of a few half blooms here
Recalling memories of them let the dew of tears flow
The elderly have died a suffering death of bullets
Let drop a few dry flowers over there

Do all of this, but do come quietly
This is a mourning-place, so cause no commotion

Untitled

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 60th birthday.

I overcome because I am overwhelmed.
I whip my life into shape,
one tension, one bit of calm at a time,
if I must I give back the distance I run,
if I must I rise and cut something from myself.

I’ve arrived at this hour dragging my body from moment to moment. Surreptitiously I serve up wounded blood.
The story I bear, how will you receive it?
The water I’ve gathered makes itself heard.
Here is the mother who keeps her child
forever in her womb.
And decides she will live, even as she drowns.

Translation by Margaret Randall

The Orange Trees

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

Ignacio Manuel Altamirano
Mexican
1834 – 1893

Come, embrace me, never remove
your arms from round my neck,
never hide your lovely face
from me,
don’t run away shyly.
Let our lips meet
In an endless, burning kiss.
Let the hours, slow and sweet,
Flow by just like this.
Doves fall silent
in green tamarind trees;
spikenards have exhausted
their supply of scents.
You’re growing languid;
your eyes close with fatigue,
and your bosom, sweet friend,
is trembling.
On the river bank
Everything droops and swoons;
The rosebays on the beach
Grow drowsy with the heat.
I’ll offer you repose
on this carpet of clover,
in the perfumed shade
of orange trees in bloom.

Translation by Enriqueta Carrington

In Memoriam…

We present this work in honor of the 5th anniversary of the poet’s death.

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.

Real Presence

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

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.

Poets Corner

Celebrating a world of written and spoken verse