jumpstart
my day
enrich
a conversation
stimulate
the night
anytime
all the time
my version
of Turkish Delight
Month: June 2017
Leaving the City by Wang An-shih: a poem with more resonance for me today
I’ve lived in the country long enough to know its many joys.
I was starting to feel like a child back in my old village again,
and suddenly, leaving the city today, I leave all that dust behind:
turning to mountains and valleys, I feel them enter my eyes.
translated by David Hinton
for Charlie & Joe on Father’s Day
both opposite
in manner
yet the same
in devotion
to that woman
who dominated
all our lives
the lesson learned
there’s more than one way
to love
that followed: for JK wherever she is
it doesn’t matter
how many years
have passed
since the night
we sat and talked
for the first time
nor the pain
mixed with joy
that followed
it is still your face
I see
in dreams
and heartache
still wakes me
at night
Pearls by Zheng Min
How many years have you slept on the sea bottom!
Time has not passed in vain,
A rainbow of light flashing over your uneven shell
Glitters freely, suffused in coral pink.
A true pearl
Is not the perfect one.
Pearls cultivated on a production schedule
Have a regular, plump-eared surface.
A handful of them, all the same size,
Show off their brilliance encircling
Pretty wrists and necks; they are most perfect,
But they are not real pearls.
Nothing seems more like pearls than virtue does:
The truest probably don’t look the most beautiful,
The most beautiful probably aren’t the truest.
My heart and soul are always
Enchanted by the uneven pearl
Because it carries messages from the ocean
And owns a sincerity for which I yearn.
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
from RABINAL-ACHI: ACT IV: A Mayan verse dance-drama
Sure
I’ve done wrong
because of the hang-ups of my heart
because I couldn’t grab
these beautiful mountains these beautiful valleys
here under sky
here on the earth
translated from the Quiche & French editions by Nathaniel Tarn
another poem from Cold Mountain by Han Shan
You have seen the blossoms among the leaves;
Tell me, how long will they stay?
Today they tremble before the hand that picks them;
Tomorrow they wait someone’s garden broom.
Wonderful is the bright heart of youth,
But with years it grows old.
Is the world not like these flowers?
Ruddy faces, how can they last?
translated by Burton Watson
listening to Emmylou Harris in the early morning hours
hear that voice
the country alive
and blue
a longing
a loving
the long road home
pour another shot
of my old friend
lift the glass
to a voice
haunting me so
a Quiche poem about home: The Face of My Mountains
My voice speaks out
to your lips,
to your face:
give me thirteen times twenty days,
thirteen times twenty nights,
to bid farewell
to the face of my mountains,
the face of my valleys,
where once I roamed
to the four world-ends,
the four world-quarters,
seeking and finding
to feed me
and live.
translated into Spanish by Prologo de Francisco Monterde, then into English by John Bierhorst
from Bring Roses and Cardamom by Horace
Whether we descend from the great houses,
Or drift unprotected under the naked
Sky, it’s all one; we are sacrifices
To Death, not well known for compassion.
We are obliged and herded. The lot is
Inside the urn; the ball with our number
Will roll out. And what we’ll get
Is an everlasting absence from home.
translated by Robert Bly
Leonard Durso 