from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author, writer, poet, journalist
Month: April 2018
Song 3 by Tzu-yeh
Nights are long and I cannot sleep
the clear moon so bright and shining.
I think I hear a voice fitfully calling,
and futilely I answer yes to the empty sky.
translated by Burton Watson
“The secret of life is in art.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
From “Ben Ruhi Bey Nasılım?”
a translation from the Turkish by Rukiye Uçar of a major Turkish poet
It has been a long while since I last posted a poetry translation. So, here comes a new one! 🙂
He gives his money if he has some
If not, he just leaves not saying a word
Then he has a pocket watch; he looks at it every now and then
But I know he has nothing to do with watches
Ruhi Bey has nothing to do with time anyway
He always wears the same clothes
He takes off his jacket in the summer
His tie is thin as string
I have never looked at his feet
His face is so interesting I don’t know if he has feet.
Edip Cansever, from “Ben Ruhi Bey Nasılım?”, translated by Rukiye Uçar
Song 2 by Tzu-yeh
In the hottest time, when all is still and windless
and summer clouds rise up at dusk,
under the dense leaves, take my hand
and we’ll float melons on the water, dunk crimson plums.
translated by Burton Watson
“The brain is wider than the sky…”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“The brain is wider than the sky…”
Emily Dickinson, poet
Complete Poems. 1924. Part One: Life CXXVI
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
Song by Tzu-yeh
Cool breezes–I sleep by the open window
where the light of the setting moon shines in.
At midnight there are no voices,
but within my gauze curtains, a pair of smiles.
translated by Burton Watson
from Long Ago I Lived in the Country by Su Tung-p’o
But those days are gone—I see them only in a painting.
No one believes me when I say I regret
not staying a herdsman all my life.
translated by Burton Watson
because Paol Soren asked: Sorrow of Departure to the Tune “Cutting a Flowering Plum Branch” by Li Ch’ing-chao
Red lotus incense fades on
The jeweled curtain. Autumn
Comes again. Gently I open
My silk dress and float alone
On the orchid boat. Who can
Take a letter beyond the clouds?
Only the wild geese come back
And write their ideograms
On the sky under the full
Moon that floods the West Chamber.
Flowers, after their kind, flutter
And scatter. Water after
Its nature, when spilt, at last
Gathers again in one place.
Creatures of the same species
Long for each other. But we
Are far apart and I have
Grown learned in sorrow.
Nothing can make it dissolve
And go away. One moment
It is on my eyebrows.
The next, it weighs on my heart.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung
from Autumn Thoughts by Han Yü
Leaves fall turning turning to the ground,
by the front eaves racing, following the wind;
morning voices seem to speak to me
as they whirl and toss in headlong flight.
An empty hall in the yellow dusk of evening:
I sit here silent, unspeaking.
The young boy comes in from outdoors,
trims the lamp, sets it before me,
asks me questions I do not answer,
brings me a supper I do not eat.
He goes and sits down by the west wall,
reading me poetry–three or four poems;
the poet is not a man of today–
already a thousand years divide us–
but something in his words strikes my heart,
fills it again with an acid grief.
I turn and call to the boy;
Put down the book and go to bed now–
a man has times when he must think,
and work to do that never ends.
translated by Burton Watson
Leonard Durso 