standing in bare feet
exiled in a distant land
seeking some comfort
with the aroma of mint
floating on the evening air
Month: April 2014
from I have many brothers in the South by Rainer Maria Rilke
Yet no matter how deeply I go down into myself
my God is dark, and like a webbing made
of a hundred roots, that drink in silence.
I know that my trunk rose from his warmth, but that’s all,
because my branches hardly move at all
near the ground, and just wave a little in the wind.
translated by Robert Bly
March Evening by Harry Martinson
Winterspring, nightfall, thawing.
Boys have lit a candle in a snowball house.
For the man in the evening train that rattles past,
it is a red memory surrounded by gray time,
calling, calling, out of stark woods just waking up.
And the man who is traveling never got home,
his life stayed behind, held by that lantern and that hour.
translated by Robert Bly
Creation Night by Harry Martinson
We met on the stone bridge,
the birches stood watch for us,
the river gleaming like an eel wound toward the sea.
We twisted together in order to create God,
there was a rustling in the grain,
and a wave shot out of the rye.
translated by Robert Bly
a fantasy: for Alex
I’m sitting on a train
going from one city
to another
in Italy
and a woman sits opposite me
wearing a blue dress
barely touching the knees
and heels
a scarf draped casually
around her slender neck
crosses her legs
leans back in the seat
and begins reading a novel
by Jose Saramago
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
in hardcover
in English
a sad smile lingers
on her lips
she stays intent on the book
not her cellphone
like so many I know see
a big plus in my ledger
and there I sit
rereading The Gospel According To Jesus Christ
and our eyes meet
just above our Saramagos
and words
which will come later
hang in the air
between us
from Love and Silence by Rumi
Awe resembles the bird that makes you quiet.
Awe and wonder put a lid on the kettle as soon as your love inside is boiling.
translated by Robert Bly
Midwinter. Snow. by Olav H. Hauge
Midwinter. Snow.
I gave the birds a piece of bread.
And it didn’t affect my sleep.
translated by Robert Bly
The Dream by Olav H. Hauge
Let us slip into
Sleep, into
The calm dream,
Just slip in–two bits
Of raw dough in the
Good oven
That we call night,
And so to awake
In the morning as
Two sound
Golden loaves!
translated by Robert Bly
A Place To Sit by Kabir
Don’t go outside your house to see flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens.
translated by Robert Bly
The Instruments by Rumi
Who is the luckiest in this whole orchestra? The reed.
Its mouth touches your lips to learn music.
All reeds, sugarcane especially, think only
of this chance. They sway in the canebrakes,
free in the many ways they dance.
Without you the instruments would die.
One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss.
The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself.
Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone,
that what died last night can be whole today.
Why live some soberer way, and feel you ebbing out?
I won’t do it.
Either give me enough wine or leave me alone,
now that I know how it is
to be with you in a constant conversation.
translated by Coleman Barks
Leonard Durso 