Pablo Neruda: Ode to the Happy Day

This time let me
be happy.
Nothing has happened to anybody,
I am nowhere special,
it happened only
that I am happy
through the four chambers
of my heart, walking,
sleeping or writing.
What can I do? I am
happy,
I am more uncountable
than the meadow
grass
I feel my skin like a wrinkled tree
and the water below,
the birds above,
the sea like a ring
around my waist,
the Earth is made of bread and stone,
the air sings like a guitar.

You,by my side in the sand,
you are the sand,
you sing and you are a song,
today the world
is my soul:
song and sand,
today the world
is your mouth:
Let me
be happy
on your mouth, on the sand,
be happy just because, because I am breathing
and because you are breathing,
be happy, because I am touching
your knee
and it is as though I am touching
the blue skin of heaven
and its pristine air.

Today let me
and me only
be happy,
with everybody or without them,
be happy,
with the grass
and the sand,
be happy
with the air and the earth,
be happy,
with you, with your mouth,
be happy.

(translation: unknown)

Pablo Neruda: Oda al día feliz

ESTA vez dejadme
ser feliz,
nada ha pasado a nadie,
no estoy en parte alguna,
sucede solamente
que soy feliz
por los cuatro costados
del corazón, andando,
durmiendo o escribiendo.
Qué voy a hacerle, soy
feliz.
Soy más innumerable
que el pasto
en las praderas,
siento la piel como un árbol rugoso
y el agua abajo,
los pájaros arriba,
el mar como un anillo
en mi cintura,
hecha de pan y piedra la tierra
el aire canta como una guitarra.

Tú a mi lado en la arena
eres arena,
tú cantas y eres canto,
el mundo
es hoy mi alma,
canto y arena,
el mundo
es hoy tu boca,
dejadme
en tu boca y en la arena
ser feliz,
ser feliz porque si, porque respiro
y porque tú respiras,
ser feliz porque toco
tu rodilla
y es como si tocara
la piel azul del cielo
y su frescura.

Hoy dejadme
a mí solo
ser feliz,
con todos o sin todos,
ser feliz
con el pasto
y la arena,
ser feliz
con el aire y la tierra,
ser feliz,
contigo, con tu boca,
ser feliz.

Al Zolynas: Under Ideal Conditions

say in the flattest part of North Dakota
on a starless moonless night
no breath of wind

a man could light a candle
then walk away
every now and then
he could turn and see
the candle burning

seventeen miles later
provided conditions remained ideal
he could still see the flame

somewhere between the seventeenth and eighteenth mile
he would lose the light

if he were walking backwards
he would know the exact moment
when he lost the flame

he could step forward and find it again
back and forth
dark to light light to dark

what's the place where the light disappears?
where the light reappears?
don't tell me about photons
and eyeballs
reflection and refraction
don't tell me about one hundred and eighty-six thousand
miles per second and the theory of relativity

all I know is that place
where the light appears and disappears
that's the place where we live

J.R.R. Tolkien: All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

Reményik Sándor: Nem urad és királyod

Kicsi leány, hidd el nekem:
Nincs olyan férfi,
Aki egy lány tökéletes
Szerelmi szent-áldozását megéri.
S ha volna is: hogy követelheti,
Hogy megtagadd magad?
Te Lélek vagy: kiolthatatlan Fény,
Megsemmisíthetetlen külön-lény,
Isten-gondolta külön-gondolat.
S kötötten is szabad.
Szabad.

"Semmiért Egészen"??
Istenkísértő őrült akarat
Képzelhet csak el így, rabnőjeképpen.
S hiába úgyis:
Nem lehet egészen.
Megíratott, hogy: "Az egyén szabad
Érvényre hozni mind, mi benne van,
Csak egy parancs kötvén le: szeretet."
De szeretni csak szabadon lehet.
Egyenlő méltósággal.
Külön világ, szemben külön világgal.
Az eggyéolvadásuk: csoda, ünnep.
De nincs embernek emberen hatalma.
És semmi sincsen, amit követelhet.
Azért, ha jönne modern Farao,
Ki lelked vágyik leigázni,
Az Isten képét benned megalázni
S gúlához követ hordani marasztal:
Pattanj vissza acélos daccal!

Kicsi leány, akárki lesz a párod:
Te önmagad vagy, és ő önmaga.
Együtt: Isten két iker-csillaga.

Kicsi leány, akárki lesz a párod:
Szegény, szánandó embertársad ő,
Nem urad és királyod.

Reményik Sándor: Csak egymáshoz

Ha most, mikor oly érthetetlenül nehéz a szívem:
Valaki jönne és karonfogna szépen, szelíden -

Nem is karon, csak kézenfogna, mint árva gyermeket a másik
És sétálnánk napnyugtától a legelső csillagsugárig!

Valaki, akinek most nem volna gondja semmi másra,
Csak arra, hogy én szomjazom csendes-szavú vigasztalásra -

Aki jönne mellettem főlehajtva egy órácskát hallgatagon
S a hallgatása azt mondaná: panaszkodjék, én hallgatom.

Újat nem mondanék, tán inkább ezerszer elmondottakat,
De új volna így, ily zavartalan-ketten az esti ég alatt -

Egy óráig, amíg a csillag felragyog és reánksugároz:
Nem volna köze semmi máshoz, nem volna közöm semmi máshoz.

Langston Hughes: Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Anna Kamienska: Funny

What's it like to be a human
the bird asked

I myself don't know
it's being held prisoner by your skin
while reaching infinity
being a captive of your scrap of time
while touching eternity
being hopelessly uncertain
and helplessly hopeful
being a needle of frost
and a handful of heat
breathing in the air
and choking wordlessly
it's being on fire
with a nest made of ashes
eating bread
while filling up on hunger
it's dying without love
it's loving through death

That's funny said the bird
and flew effortlessly up into the air

Gioconda Belli: Ahuyentemos el tiempo, amor

Ahuyentemos el tiempo, amor,
que ya no exista;
esos minutos largos que desfilan pesados
cuando no estás conmigo
y estás en todas partes
sin estar pero estando.
Me dolés en el cuerpo,
me acariciás el pelo
y no estás
y estás cerca,
te siento levantarte
desde el aire llenarme
pero estoy sola, amor,
y este estarte viendo
sin que estés,
me hace sentirme a veces
como una leona herida,
me retuerzo
doy vueltas
te busco
y no estás
y estás
allí
tan cerca.

St. Thomas Aquinas: We are fields before each other

How is it they live for eons in such harmony -
the billions of stars -

when most men can barely go a minute
without declaring war in their mind against someone they know.

There are wars where no one marches with a flag,
though that does not keep casualties
from mounting.

Our hearts irrigate this earth.
We are fields before
each other.

How can we live in harmony?
First we need to
know

we are all madly in love
with the same
God.

Saadi

The world is not a courtroom,
there is no judge, no jury, no plaintiff.

This is a caravan,
filled with eccentric beings
telling wondrous stories about God.

Reményik Sándor: Vizek ha találkoznak

Harsogva jő két vadpatak,
Egy harmadik, egy negyedik,
Külön kis völgyből mindenik, -
De egymás felé tartanak.
Alább a sodruk sebesebb,
Alább már malmot hajtanak,
Fűrészt lendítnek rönköt vágni.

Mennek - és nem fognak megállni!

A forráspontjuk messze-messze
Rejlik az Ünőkő alatt,
Egyiké itt, a másiké amott.
De álmukban már látják társukat,
Akihez vágy ragadja őket,
S a testvér felé küzdik magukat.
Vadul birkóznak fával, kővel. -

És győznek - egyesült erővel.

Vera Pavlova: 8

A beast in winter,
a plant in spring,
an insect in summer,
a bird in autumn.
The rest of the time I am a woman.

John O'Donohue: A Blessing for Equilibrium

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the music of laughter break through your soul.

As the wind wants to make everything dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the freedom of the monastery bell,
May clarity of mind make your eyes smile.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May a sense of irony give you perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May fear or worry never put you in chains.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
To hear in the distance the laughter of God.

Octavio Paz: With Eyes Closed

With eyes closed
you light up within
you are blind stone

Night after night I carve you
with eyes closed
you are frank stone

We have become enormous
just knowing each other
with eyes closed

Octavio Paz: Con Los Ojos Cerrados

Con los ojos cerrados
te iluminas por dentro
eres la piedra ciega

Noche a noche te labro
con los ojos cerrados
eres la piedra franca

Nos volvemos inmensos
solo por conocernos
con los ojos cerrados

Bokonon

life is a garden,
not a road

we enter and exit
through the same gate

wandering,
where we go matters less
than what we notice

Lisel Mueller: Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say that there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent.  The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases.  Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

Radnóti Miklós: Szerelmes volt a kishugom nagyon

hegedült búsan az esti szobában
a tártkarú rézállványra hulltan
fehér csuklója villogva hintált
a húrok fölött és a képek tapsoltak
halkan a falon ha megpihent
karcsú vonója.

szerelmes volt
áttetszően lengett a teste
szájoncsókolt és drága játékos
ujjaival símogatta meg a hajamat.

szomorú voltam, mert szomorú volt.

hugom hegedült a kis szobában
fehér csuklója villogva hintált
és képek tapsoltak halkan ha
megpihent karcsú vonója.

Nikki Giovanni: Habits

i haven’t written a poem in so long
i may have forgotten how
unless writing a poem
is like riding a bike
or swimming upstream
or loving you
it may be a habit that once acquired
is never lost

but you say i'm foolish
of course you love me
but being loved of course
is not the same as being loved because
or being loved despite
or being loved

if you love me why
do i feel so lonely
and why do i always wake up alone
and why am i practicing
not having you to love
i never loved you that way

if being loved by you is accepting always
getting the worst
taking the least
hearing the excuse
and never being called when you say you will
then it’s a habit
like smoking cigarettes
or brushing my teeth when i awake
something i could just as well do

most habits occur
because of laziness
we overdrink
because our friends do
we overeat
because our parents think
we need more flesh
on the bones
and perhaps my worst habit
is overloving
and like most who live
to excess
i will be broken
in two
by my unwillingness
to control my feelings

but i sit writing
a poem
about my habits
which while it’s not
a great poem
is mine
and some habits
like smiling at children
or giving a seat to an old person
should stay
if for no other reason
than their civilizing
influence

which is the ultimate
habit
i need
to acquire

Naomi Shihab Nye: The Time

Summer is the time to write. I tell myself this
in winter especially. Summer comes,
I want to tumble with the river
over rocks and mossy dams.

A fish drifting upside down.
Slow accordians sweeten the breeze.

The Sanitary Mattress Factory says,
"Sleep is Life."
Why do I think of forty ways to spend an afternoon?

Yesterday someone said, "It gets late so early."
I wrote it down. I was going to do something with it.
Maybe it is a title and this life is the poem.

Octavio Paz: Brotherhood

Homage to Claudius Ptolemy

I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment
someone spells me out.

(Translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger)

Octavio Paz: Hermandad

Homenaje a Claudio Ptolomeo

Soy hombre: duro poco
y es enorme la noche.
Pero miro hacia arriba:
las estrellas escriben.
Sin entender comprendo:
también soy escritura
y en este mismo instante
alguien me deletrea.

Donald Hall: Lust in Mortality Mansions

When I was young and sexual
I looked forward to a cool Olympian age
for release from my obsessions
Ho, ho, ho. At sixty the body's one desire
sustains my pulse, not to mention
my groin, as much as it it ever did, if not quite
so often. When I gaze at your
bottom as you bend gardening, or at your breasts,
or at your face with its helmet
of sensuous hair, or at your eyes proposing
the text of our next encounter,
my attention departs from history, baseball,
food, poetry, and deathless fame.
Let us pull back the blanket, slide off our bluejeans,
assume familiar positions,
and celebrate lust in Mortality Mansions.

Nikki Giovanni: Rain

rain is
god's sperm falling
in the receptive
woman how else
to spend
a rainy day
other than with you
seeking sun and stars
and heavenly bodies
how else to spend
a rainy day
other than with you 

Radnóti Miklós: Mese

Csöndesen alszik a hegy
kicsi barlangjában a béke;
még csecsemőnyi csupán,
szelíd őz szoptatja naponta
s rejteni szép hálót
fon a pók a bejárat elébe.

Mary Fell: This Is A Love Poem

My blood
suddenly
knows you are gone

It is shouting your name

It runs
down to the ends of my fingers
looking for you

It wants to be
a piece of red wool
unraveling
all the way to Central America

It wants to be a boat
coming into the harbor at Managua
carrying fruit

Through all the rooms of my body
it is running
opening doors

A child in a tantrum stamps
red shoes
demanding to know where you are

Constantine P. Cavafy: Remember, Body

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds where you lay,
but also those desires for you,
shining clearly in eyes
and trembling in a voice—and some chance
obstacle thwarted them.
Now when everything is the past,
it almost looks as if you gave yourself
to those desires as well—how they shone—
remember—in the eyes that looked at you,
how they trembled for you in the voice—remember, body.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: Rima I

Tudok egy furcsa, hatalmas himnuszt,
lelkemnek éjében köszönt hajnalt, reggelt,
belőle való, mit írtam, könyvem,
zeneszót árnyékok között szél terelget.

Rímet ha mondok, rabbá igáznám
a fukar, lázadó, engedetlen nyelvet,
legyenek szavaim színek, hangok,
ővelük sóhajtsak, vagy nevetni kezdjek.

De hiába; nincs olyan jelírás,
mely megőrzi mindezt, hacsak te, ó, legszebb!,
kezed kezembe nem adod, akkor
füledbe súghatnám titkát énekemnek.

(Simor András fordítása)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: Rima I

Yo sé un himno gigante y extraño
que anuncia en la noche del alma una aurora,
y estas páginas son de ese himno
cadencias que el aire dilata en las sombras.

Yo quisiera escribirle, del hombre
domando el rebelde, mezquino idioma,
con palabras que fuesen a un tiempo
suspiros y risas, colores y notas.

Pero en vano es luchar; que no hay cifra
capaz de encerrarle; y apenas, ¡oh, hermosa!,
si, teniendo en mis manos las tuyas,
pudiera, al oído, cantártelo a solas.

Ted Kooser: Pocket Poem

If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I’d opened it a thousand times
to see if what I’d written here was right,
it’s all because I looked too long for you
to put in your pocket. Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers. What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me. 

Emily Lloyd: Things I Haven’t Felt

Different, after losing my virginity.
Better, after the medicine I took.
Mosquitoes on my skin, before they’ve bitten me.
Profoundly changed, after I read that book.

The call of the wild. The glow of pregnancy.
Guilty, after sleeping with someone’s wife.
High as a kite, high even as a tree.
The peace that passeth understanding. Safe.

God’s presence in the world, and that of the boy
who thought I was his mother at the mall.
How long had he walked beside me without my noticing?
How long had I inadvertently hidden my face?