When all the dust had settled down,
And the crater revealed itself
— a crusty bullet-entry wound
the size of an adolescent heart —
Only simple forms remained;
Bacteria, Philosophy, and Art.

(and a polish poem regarding the problem of evil)

A Poem For The End Of The Century
By Czeslaw Milosz

When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,

I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.

What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.

Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.

Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?

To a saintly man
–So goes an Arab tale–
God said somewhat maliciously:
“Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you.”

“And I,” answered the pious one,
“Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you.”

To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?

Don’t think, don’t remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.

Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity.

By Pablo Neruda (translated by Robert Bly)

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailor shops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.

Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.

I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don’t want so much misery.
I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.

That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.

And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.

I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.

I’ve always rejected the idea that one should, or even could, find consolation in being better off than “those less fortunate.” It’s, at best, superficial and sedating; and at worst, invalidating and guilt-inducing.

On the other hand, there is –unquestionably– some solace in regarding the pain of others with empathy and solidarity: Helps one appreciate the proper weight of grief, and better coexist and cope with the pain.

I measure every Grief I meet
by Emily Dickinson

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –

I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –

I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –

I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –

The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –

There’s Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call “Despair” –
There’s Banishment from native Eyes –
In Sight of Native Air –

And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –

To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they’re mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like My Own –

شُفت زَرَقَان حواليه … إزْرَقِّيت
و حَمَار و صَفَار و كل لون بقيت
ليه الدُنيا ماهياش بمبي؟ و ليه قلبي
مش نقطة مياه ف حلة زيت؟
عجبي

يا شاعر…يا فنان…قصدك إيه بقه؟
و إنتَ يا بهلوان…إمتي تِبَطَّل تريقه؟
إتسأل العصفور عن غُنَاه…قال
و إيش يِملك العصفور غير الزقزقه؟
عجبي

I’ve just come back from watching Into the Wild (trailer), which was absolutely terrific!, if for nothing else, then for the moving rendition of Sharon Olds’ I Go Back to May 1937 :

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it–she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

The burger
I ate in Detriot
and left in Orlando:
Where did she graze?

Each branch tipped
with a folded cone, gasping
like fish in air:

Spring is late, limping.

Now a goldfinch flits
by the feeder — a daffodil
with wings.

by Susan Robertson.

(*first seen on the bus on a cloudy late Spring afternoon.)

Lisa has a really nice post (including shots of two really nice poems by Darwish and Adunis) about Poetry for the Road,

Excerpts from poems in Hebrew, Arabic and French have been emblazoned on colourful banners and suspended from the trees lining the city’s boulevards; there are also miniature take-home versions in the form of postcards that have been distributed amongst the cafes.

She did not attempt to translate Adunis’ poem, and perhaps I shouldn’t have either, but… under the influence of Shajarian’s music and such wonderful words, who can resist? So here’s my attempt. Please be generous with your criticism.

The child I used to be,
once
appeared to me,
a stranger.
He didn’t utter a word. We walked,
glancing at one another in silence. Our strides
a river running astray.