January

here
you see this
hand

here you see this
sky
this
bridge

hear this
sound

the agony of the
elephant

Forgive me

Sometimes I come too soon
Like I came to this world
Or sometimes too late
Like I loved you at this age

I am always late for happiness
I always go to misery too soon
Either everything has already come to an end
Or nothing has started yet

no help for that

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
 a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times

we will know it

Song of The Flower

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth; I was
Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

That poet

That poet you admire so–
in my fifteen years
in the workers movement
I've never seen him
in attendance at
a demonstration against
social injustice, or at
a memorial honoring
a revolutionary hero,
or at a rally in support
of an uprising people–

Piedritas en la ventana

 










De vez en cuando la alegría
tira piedritas contra mi ventana
quiere avisarme que esta ahí esperando
pero me siento calmo
casi diría ecuánime
voy a guardar la angustia en un escondite
y luego a tenderme la cara al techo
que es una posición gallarda y cómoda
para filtrar noticias y creerlas
quien sabe donde quedan mis próximas huellas
ni cuando mi historia va a ser computada

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

No te rindas

No te rindas, aún estás a tiempo
De alcanzar y comenzar de nuevo,
Aceptar tus sombras,
Enterrar tus miedos,
Liberar el lastre,
Retomar el vuelo.
No te rindas que la vida es eso,
Continuar el viaje,
Perseguir tus sueños,
Destrabar el tiempo,
Correr los escombros,
Y destapar el cielo.
No te rindas, por favor no cedas,
Aunque el frío queme,
Aunque el miedo muerda,
Aunque el sol se esconda,

Dream Variations

To fling my arms wide

In some place of the sun,

To whirl and to dance

Till the white day is done.

Then rest at cool evening

Beneath a tall tree

While night comes on gently,

    Dark like me—

That is my dream!

No te salves

No te quedes inmóvil
al borde del camino
no congeles el júbilo
no quieras con desgana
no te salves ahora
ni nunca

no te salves
no te llenes de calma
no reserves del mundo
sólo un rincón tranquilo
no dejes caer los párpados

Beauty

Αnd a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us."
And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."
The tired and the weary say, "Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow."
But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting among the mountains,

Transitions

Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a truly meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created.

Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game


(Picture: Blue sky painting, Acrylic on canvas, Sam Francis)

The Kiss

Lips' language to lips' ears.
Two drinking each other's heart, it seems.
Two roving loves who have left home,
pilgrims to the confluence of lips.
Two waves rise by the law of love
to break and die on two sets of lips.
Two wild desires craving each other
meet at last at the body's limits.
Love's writing a song in dainty letters,
layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.
Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
perhaps to thread them into a chain later.
This sweet union of lips
is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.

The walnut tree

my head foaming clouds, sea inside me and out
I am a walnut tree in Gulhane Park
an old walnut, knot by knot, shred by shred
Neither you are aware of this, nor the police
I am a walnut tree in Gulhane Park
My leaves are nimble, nimble like fish in water
My leaves are sheer, sheer like a silk handkerchief
pick, wipe, my rose, the tear from your eyes
My leaves are my hands, I have one hundred thousand
I touch you with one hundred thousand hands, I touch Istanbul
My leaves are my eyes, I look in amazement
I watch you with one hundred thousand eyes, I watch Istanbul
Like one hundred thousand hearts, beat, beat my leaves
I am a walnut tree in Gulhane Park
neither you are aware of this, nor the police

Nâzım Hikmet Ran


(Picture: In the park, Aleksey Savrasov)

Limits

Of these streets that deepen the sunset,

There must be one (but which) that I’ve walked

Already one last time, indifferently

And without knowing it, submitting

To One who sets up omnipotent laws

And a secret and a rigid measure

For the shadows, the dreams, and forms

That work the warp and weft of this life.

If all things have a limit and a value

A last time nothing more and oblivion

Who can say to whom in this house

Unknowingly, we have said goodbye?

A Bird, came down the Walk

A Bird, came down the Walk —
He did not know I saw —
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass —
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass —

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad —
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. —

Moreover, the Moon

 


Face of the skies

preside

over our wonder.

Fluorescent

truant of heaven

draw us under.

Silver, circular corpse

your decease

infects us with unendurable ease,

All that's Left

All that's Left

    in the world

—whether in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia

as well as in China, Japan, the United States,

Europe, the Middle East, Africa—

all of them cannot,

     despite their resistance,

     despite their refusal,

stop this march of death

because they,

as well as all that's Right

in the world,