unask

 

 

my sweet, crushed angel

 

You didn't dance so badly, my dear, my love:
Not easy to keep the beat with Beauty itself.

You moved like an angel,
My sweet, crushed angel,
Getting that near to God.

Hard to follow, those moves of His,
Are they not, sweetheart, my heart?
And His musicians, well: how many can hear them at all?

OK, so the music has stopped
For a while;
So, tonight, it costs just too much
to get down with God.

But Hafiz knows the way God works.
Have patience, angel, He will feel your desire,
And there He will be
For you.

You didn't dance so badly, my dear, my heart:
Not easy, you know, to embrace the Unbearable.

You moved like an angel,
O my sweet,
My sweet crushed angel.

Hafiz, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

 

 

 

gazing down at the sea

 

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

 

Wallace Stevens

 

 

 

 

 

greenness

 

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

 

from Coleridge, Frost at midnight

 

 

 

 

 

scamel

there is a new entry in our scamel blog.

 

 

 

 

flowers for the Buddha

 

the winter river.
floating on it,
flowers for the Buddha

 

Buson, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

 

 

 

memory by memory

 

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind--

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

 

from Archibald MacLeish, Ars poetica

 

 

 

 

 

tristesse

 

sadness, goodbye
but hello again
you are the writing
on the ceiling
you are the writing
in her eyes
sadness, sadness, you're not that bad
I can eclipse and cloud you with a smile
welcome, again
you are the body of love
you are the power of love
love's uprising
beyond the body
beyond the brain
sadness, you have
a beautiful face.

 

after Paul Eluard, Adieu tristesse

 

 

 

 

 

certain letters

 

A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.

 

from W.H. Auden, Their lonely betters