From "Autumn, Love, Commercials" - Yehuda Amichai
[5]
I want to sing a psalm of praise to all that remains
here with us and doesn't leave, doesn't wander off like migratory birds,
will not flee to the north or the south, will not sing "In the East
is my heart,
and I dwell at the end of the West." I want to sing to the trees
that do not shed their leaves and that suffer
the searing summer heat and the cold of winter,
and to human beings who do not shed their memories
and who suffer more than those who shed everything.
But above all, I want to sing a psalm of praise
to the lovers who stay together for joy, for sorrow and for joy.
To make a home, to make babies, now and in other seasons.
(Translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld)
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Maternity - Ana Swir
I gave birth to life.
It went out of my entrails
and asks for the sacrifice of my life
as does an Aztec deity.
I lean over a little puppet,
we look at each other
with four eyes.
"You are not going to defeat me," I say "I won't be an egg which you would crack in a hurry for the world, a footbridge that you would take on the way to your life. I will defend myself."
I lean over a little puppet, I notice a tiny movement of a tiny finger which a little while ago was still in me, in which, under a thin skin, my own blood flows. And suddenly I am flooded by a high, luminous wave of humility. Powerless, I drown.
(Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan)
Note: Discovered this poem in an anthology of poems put out the Copper Canyon Press titled "The Poet's Child". Milosz was a very big fan of Ana Swir, and given the resonances these two poets share, one can see why.
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Effort At Speech Between Two People - Muriel Rukeyser
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit who died in the story
and I crawled under a chair: a pink rabbit: it was my birthday, and a candle burnt
a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.
Oh, grow to know me. I am not happy. I will be open : Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music, like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now? When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental, fluid: and my widowed aunt played Chopin, and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept. I want now to be close to you. I would link the minutes of my days close, somehow to your days.
I am not happy. I will be open. I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems. There has been fear in my life. Sometimes I speculate On what a tragedy his life was, really.
Take my hand. Fist my mind in your hand. What are you now? When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide, and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward death: if the light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty, if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt, I am unhappy. I am lonely. Speak to me.
I will be open. I think he never loved me: he loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls: he said with a gay mouth: I love you. Grow to know me.
What are you now? If we could touch one another, if these our separate entities could come to grips, clenched like a Chinese puzzle...yesterday I stood in a crowded street that was live with people, and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone. Everyone silent, moving...Take my hand. Speak to me.
Note: This poem came to my mind earlier this morning when I stepped out of my garret to buy milk for breakfast, into a brilliant morning - the "morning shone" - that had a distinct taste of fall, and a street filled with babbling school children, and I suppose with a wish indicated in the refrain of this poem, "Take my hand. Speak to me."
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