The traveler’s heart has a hundred thoughts already,
his lonely journey piling mile on endless mile.
The river darkens, rain about to fall;
waves turn white as the wind comes up.
translated by Burton Watson
Month: April 2018
Wrecked Boat on the River Shore by Chiang Lu
So fine, the boards of magnolia;
splendid, the cinnamon woodwork!
You chased the waves, only to come to this;
rode the wind, yet brought on your own downfall.
Grasses are rank, your canopy was buried long ago;
the sands are monstrous, your hull would never budge.
How long it’s been since you sank in the dry land,
never again to ride the rippling sun.
translated by Burton Watson
To Beloved Old Age by Juan Ramon Jimenez
If only your memory
of me were this blue May
sky, completely filled with
the pure stars of my acts!
If my acts were identical, like them: all pure,
clear, good, tranquil, just like the stars!
Below, I see your smile in dreams
–dreams of your memories of my life!–
translated by Dennis Maloney & Clark Zlotchew
“A leader tells the truth. I needn’t extend that thought by so much as a syllable.“
not hard to see how, where, to whom this applies: from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“A leader tells the truth. I needn’t extend that thought by so much as a syllable.“
Frank Bruni, journalist, source: Perversion of Leadership
Sorrow, it is not true that I know you by Antonio Machado
Sorrow, it is not true that I know you;
you are the nostalgia for a good life,
and the aloneness of the soul in shadow,
the sailing ship without wreck and without guide.
Like an abandoned dog who cannot find
a smell or a track and roams
along the roads, with no road, like
the child who in a night of the fair
gets lost among the crowd,
and the air is dusty, and the candles
fluttering–astounded, his heart
weighed down by music and the pain;
that’s how I am, drunk, sad by nature,
a mad and lunar guitarist, a poet,
and an ordinary man lost in dreams,
searching constantly for God among the mists.
translated by Robert Bly
Separation by Death by Ibn Hazm
She was pure and white, resembling the sun as it rises.
All other women were merely stars!
Love for her has made my heart fly off its permanent branch,
And after stopping a whie, it is still hovering in the air!
translated by A.R. Nykl
from Chasity by Ibn Faraj of Jaén
She was a field of fruit and flowers
offering one like me no other enjoyment
than sight and sound.
Know then that I am not
one of those beasts gone wild
who take gardens for pastures.
translated by Lysander Kemp
Arrival by William Carlos Williams
And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom–
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind. . .!
from Jeff Schwaner’s blog Translations from the English
Full It’s after cats but before owls. The moon fills its pockets and hangs Out behind the house next door. Like the sky’s a comfortable side street You can ride a skateboard or bike along And find a new favorite skipping stone You’ll hold onto until the next time At the creek, which will be […]
from The Pitcher by Kabir
If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you.
The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself,
and he is the one who has made it all.
translated by Robert Bly
Leonard Durso 