I see faces
more often than not
in other faces
it is as if
the people I know/knew
are here in people I pass
on the street in the market on the ferry
these constant reminders
of who filtered through my life
could be disconcerting
if I wasn’t so used to it
there’s Alex reading a book
oh and Carl in the corner
staring out at sea
and Kathy on the bus
sitting next to the old man
who looks a bit like Albert
and there’s Vic
talking to that girl
whose name you can’t quite remember
Marion or Miriam
or something like that
the one who lived up the coast
from you in Malibu
who fell asleep
on the floor
at that reunion
at Joan Barnett’s
when Billy was showing us all
he could be sensitive
and that one there
she looks like that assistant producer
who took you…

We are involved with flower, leaf, and fruit.
They speak not just the language of one year.
From darkness a bright phenomenon appears
and still reflects, perhaps, the jealous glint

of the dead, who fill the earth. How can we know
what part they play within the ancient cycle?
Long since, it has been their job to make the soil
vigorous with the force of their free marrow.

But have they done it willingly? we ask. . .
Does this fruit, formed by heavy slaves, push up
like a clenched fist, to threaten us, their masters?

Or in fact are they the masters, as they sleep
beside the roots and grant us, from their riches,
this hybrid Thing of speechless strength and kisses?

translated by Stephen Mitchell

Just as the winged energy of delight
carried you over many chasms early on,
now raise the daringly imagined arch
holding up the astonishing bridges.

Miracle doesn’t lie only in the amazing
living through and defeat of danger;
miracles become miracles in the clear
achievement that is earned.

To work with things is not hubris
when building the association beyond words;
denser and denser the pattern becomes–
being carried along is not enough.

Take your well-disciplined strengths
and stretch them between two
opposing poles. Because inside human beings
is where God learns.

translated by Robert Bly

I had you in all these things of the world,
that I love calmly, like a brother;
in things no one cares for you brood like a seed;
and to powerful things you give an immense power.

Strength plays such a marvelous game–
it moves through the things of the world like a servant,
groping out in roots, tapering in trunks,
and in the treetops like a rising from the dead.

translated by Robert Bly

How long before I’ve grown feathers and wings
and settled beside you at the end of flight?

translated by David Hinton

http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Teaching-Kids-Revised-Updated-ebook/dp/B00IBZ60AA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452992106&sr=1-1&keywords=stop+teaching+our+kids+to+kill

I just glanced at this book today, when I was in Barnes.  It seemed interesting and the bits I read made perfect sense.  Just letting you know it’s out there, in case you want to look at it.

Özdemir Asaf (1923-1981)

Till Morning The world is so big; I am a dot in the middle of it, no matter what I do. Yet at times the world becomes so small, I feel it will fall over if I move. Life is so long, It feels like never ending for a moment... Then it becomes so short before I know it; What, I say, could come out of a life.  Felicity is so vital to the living; One, I swear, would die for it. Besides, it is so pointless to rejoice Over those that died without living a happy moment. I am so important a person, So good with my mind and thoughts. So wicked I am with my mad intentions. O night; you are so dark and silent... Falling on the houses, seas in such a way. Yet at the same time you are so bright and loud; So madly exciting us. O morning…

Seeing moonlight here on my bed
and thinking it’s frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,
then back, dreaming of my old home.

translated by David Hinton

Distant clouds, trees deep into mist,
autumn bathed in a river’s clarity.

Where is she tonight, so beautiful?
Moonlight floods the mountaintops.

translated by David Hinton

Mist mantling cold waters, and moonlight shoreline sand,
we anchor overnight near a wine-house entertaining guests.

A nation lost in ruins; knowing nothing of that grief, girls
sing Courtyard Blossoms. Their voices drift across the river.

translated by David Hinton