Failing and Flying

Bird in Space by Constantin Brancusi

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was 
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars 
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say 
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

- Jack Gilbert


Notes: In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. The main story told about Icarus is his attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. He ignored instructions not to fly too close to the sun, and the melting wax caused him to fall into the sea where he drowned. Read more here.

To His Coy Mistress

Resting Woman Wearing Tiara by Henri Matisse

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
        
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
       
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run. 

- Andrew Marvell

Ode on Melancholy

The Old Tower in the Fields by Vincent Van Gogh

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
       Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
       By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
               Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
       Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
               Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
       For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
               And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
       Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
       And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
       Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
               Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
       Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
               And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
       And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
       Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
       Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
               Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
       Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
               And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

- John Keats 


Notes:
1) In Classical Greek, the word Lethe literally means "oblivion", "forgetfulness", or "concealment". 
2) For a deeper understanding of the poem, read more here.

The Waking

A Window by Neha

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

- T. Roethke

Dasht-e-Tanhaai

dasht-e-tanhaai mein, ai jaan-e-jahaan, larzaan hain 
In the desert of my solitude, oh love of my life, quiver
teri avaaz ke saaye, 
the shadows of your voice,
tere honthon ke saraab 
the mirage of your lips

dasht-e-tanhaai mein, 
In the desert of my solitude,
duri ke khas-o-khaak tale
beneath the dust and ashes of distance
khil rahe hain tere pehlu ke saman aur gulaab
bloom the jasmines and roses of your proximity

uht rahi hai kahin qurbat se 
From somewhere very close,
teri saans ki aanch 
rises the warmth of your breath
apani khushbuu mein sulagti hui 
smouldering in its own aroma,
maddham maddham 
slowly, bit by bit.

dur ufaq par chamakati hui 
far away, across the horizon, glistens
qatra qatra
drop by drop
gir rahi hai teri dil daar nazar ki shabnam 
the falling dew of your beguiling glance

is qadar pyaar se hai jaan-e jahaan rakkhaa hai 
With such tenderness, O love of my life,
dil ke rukhsaar pe 
on the cheek of my heart,
is vaqt teri yaad ne haath
has your memory placed its hand right now

yun guman hota hai 
that it looks as if
garche hai abhi subah-e-firaaq
(though it’s still the dawn of adieu)
dhal gaya hijr ka din 
the sun of separation has set
aa bhi gaye vasl ki raat 
and the night of union has arrived.

- Faiz Ahmed Faiz

(Translated by Ayesha Kaljuvee)

Can't quite decide which rendition is my favorite, they are all beautiful: 

1) Iqbal Bano 

2) Tina Sani 

3) Iqbal Qasim 

4) Meesha Shafi 

Music and Dreams

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

- Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy 

Dancing

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."-Friedrich Nietzsche  

(Poem #1370) Ask to Embla, XIII

 They say that women change: 'tis so: but you
 Are ever-constant in your changefulness,
 Like that still thread of falling river, one
 From source to last embrace in the still pool
 Ever-renewed and ever-moving on
 From first to last a myriad water-drops
 And you -- I love you for it -- are the force
 That moves and holds the form.

- A S Byatt  (fictionally attributed to "Randolph Henry Ash" in "Possession")

Light

"You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

The Lightest Touch

Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then like a hand in the dark
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows
a great line
you can feel Lazarus
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

  -- David Whyte from Everything is Waiting for You

The Word

Where hope lives by Neha

Down near the bottom
 of the crossed-out list
 of things you have to do today,

 between "green thread"
 and "broccoli" you find
 that you have penciled "sunlight."

 Resting on the page, the word
 is as beautiful, it touches you
 as if you had a friend

 and sunlight were a present
 he had sent you from some place distant
 as this morning -- to cheer you up,

 and to remind you that,
 among your duties, pleasure
 is a thing,

 that also needs accomplishing
 Do you remember?
 that time and light are kinds

 of love, and love
 is no less practical
 than a coffee grinder

 or a safe spare tire?
 Tomorrow you may be utterly
 without a clue

 but today you get a telegram,
 from the heart in exile
 proclaiming that the kingdom

 still exists,
 the king and queen alive,
 still speaking to their children,

 - to any one among them
 who can find the time,
 to sit out in the sun and listen.

 - Tony Hoagland

(Poem #1714) Geetanjali

Supermoon by Neha

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.
I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best
friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death;
I hate it, yet hug it in love.
My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; 
yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Eurydice

I am not afraid as I descend,
step by step, leaving behind the salt wind
blowing up the corrugated river,

the damp city streets, their sodium glare
of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain;
for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon.

Already your face recedes beneath the station clock,
a damp smudge among the shadows
mirrored in the train's wet glass,

will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out
past cranes and crematoria,
boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards

of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud,
the rows of curtained windows like eyelids
heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge.

Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast
the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear.
Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair.

You turned to look.
Second fly past like birds.
My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud.

This path unravels.
Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust
and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping.

Above the hurt sky is weeping,
soaked nightingales have ceased to sing.
Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue.

I dream of a green garden
where the sun feathers my face
like your once eager kiss.

Soon, soon I will climb
from this blackened earth
into the diffident light.

- Susan Hubbard

Written On The Body

Whatever is powerful to you can be translated into something which will matter to somebody that you will never know.

All of my books are about boundaries and desire - the boundaries we should try to cross, like fear and class and skin-colour and expectation, and the boundaries that seem to define us, such as our sense of self, our gender. Disease, especially a disease like cancer or aids, breaks down the boundaries of the immune system and forces a new self on us that we often don't recognise. Our territory is eaten away. We are parcelled out into healthy areas and metastasised areas. Parts of us are still whole, too much has been invaded. 

Against this, I wanted to look again, (I am always looking again) at love's ability to shatter and heal simultaneously. Loving someone else destroys our ideas of who we are and what we want. Priorities change, friends change, houses change, we change. Part of the strangeness of being human is our need of boundaries, parameters, definitions, explanations, and our need for them to be overturned. For most people, only the positives of love and faith (and a child is both), or the negatives of disaster and disease, achieve this. Death comes too late. The final shattering affects others, but not ourselves.

- Jeanette Winterson on her book "Written on the body"

Sonnet 116

The Cupboard by Neha

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- Shakespeare 

Geometry

Circular by Neha

Logic can only go so far
after that I must see-perceive-imagine
This geometry can help
I may reason logically thru theorem
and propositions galore,
but only what I perceive is real.
If after studying I am not changed
if after studying I still see the same
then all has gone for naught.
Geometry is to open up my mind
so I may see what has always been behind
the illusions that time
and space construct.
Space isn’t made of point and line
the points and lines are in the mind.
The physicists see space as curved
with particles that are quite blurred.
And, when I draw, everything is fat
there are no point and that is that.
The artists and the dreamer knows
that space is where an image grows.
For me it’s a sea in which I swim
a formless sea of hope and whim.
Thru my fear on Infinity and One
I structure space to confine
my imagination away from the idea
That all in One.
But, I can from this trap escape
I can see the geometry in which I wander
as but a structure I made to ponder.
I can dare to let fo the structures
and my fears
and look beyond
to see what is always there to see.
But, to let go, I must first grab on.
Geometry is both the grabbing on
and the letting go.
It is a logical structure
and a perceived meaning
Q.E.D.’s and “Oh! I see”’s
It is formal abstractions
and beautiful contraptions.
It is talking precisely about that
Which we know only fuzzily.
But, in the end, and, most of all,
it is seeing-perceiving
The meaning that
I AM.

- David Henderson 

Acceptance

A Pointed Season by Neha

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night bee too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.

- Robert Frost

The Journey - Geetanjali

Belonging by Neha

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, 
and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds 
leaving my track on many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, 
and that training is the most intricate 
which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, 
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds 
to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said 'Here art thou!'
The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams
and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'

-XII, Geetanjali, Rabindranath Tagore 

Geetanjali

"The Flight" by Neha

The child who is decked with prince's robes and who has

jeweled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play;

his dress hampers him at every step.

In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps

himself from the world, and is afraid even to move.

Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keeps one

shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob

one of the right of entrance to the great fair of

common human life.

- Geetanjali, VIII, Rabindranath Tagore 

Sometimes

There can be no disgrace
For the true expression of Love
That without it,
a man can be coarsened and degraded
In mind, body and soul

Oh I've searched it once
But there is no love anywhere
I cannot find love by searching for it
It comes to us unbiden
Then we give it to others

Yes
Would you play something gay
Yes

- From "Hope & Sorrow" by Wax Tailor, Listen on YouTube here.

Beauty and Truth

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

“For beauty”, I replied.

“And I for truth, - the two are one;

We brethren are,” he said

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms.

Until the moss had reached our lips

And covered up our names

- Emily Dickinson 

Expecting

She is taking down her thoughts, reflecting,
Expecting
She is musing on her autumn, her dreams,
Her dreams
She is making up her mind, expecting,
Expecting
She is waiting in the woods, expecting
Expecting

- Minnie Ripperton

The Look

"A benchmark" by Neha

STEPHON kissed me in the spring, 

Robin in the fall, 

But Colin only looked at me 

And never kissed at all.

Stephon's kiss was lost in jest,

Robin's lost in play,

But the kiss in Colin's eyes

Haunts me night and day.

- Sara Teasdale

I Like You When You Are Quiet

" From a distance" by Neha

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent,
and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you.
It looks as though your eyes had flown away
and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.
Like all things are full of my soul
You emerge from the things, full of my soul.
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul,
and you look like a melancoly word.
I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant.
It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
let me fall quiet with your own silence.
Let me also speak to you with your silence
Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring.
You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.
I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent.
Distant and painful as if you had died.
A word then, a smile is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it is not true.

- Pablo Neruda

Archaic Torso of Apollo

" The Net" by Neha

We cannot know his legendary head

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso

is still suffused with brilliance from inside,

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise

the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could

a smile run through the placid hips and thighs

to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced

beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders

and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,

burst like a star: for here there is no place

that does not see you. You must change your life. 

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Love's Secret

"In the shadows" by Neha

Never seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind does move

Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart;

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,

Ah! she did depart!

Soon as she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly

He took her with a sigh.

- William Blake

Most beautiful

"Flutter" by Neha

The most beautiful sea:

hasn't been crossed yet.

The most beautiful child:

hasn't grown up yet.

Our most beautiful days:

we haven't seen yet.

And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you

I haven't said yet...

- Nâzım Hikmet Ran

Love

"Sprinkled" by Neha

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the

perfumes of spring.

I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;

how did your lips feel on mine?

Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,

the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.

I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten

your eyes.

Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of

you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will

do me irreparable harm.

Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.

I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every

window.

Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because

of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting

stars, falling objects.

- Pablo Neruda

Solitude

"Channel" by Neha

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Turbulance

"Inverted" by Neha

There’ll be turbulence. You’ll drop
your book to hold your
water bottle steady. Your
mind, mind has mountains, cliffs of fall
may who ne’er hung there let him
watch the movie. The plane’s
supposed to shudder, shoulder on
like this. It’s built to do that. You’re
designed to tremble too. Else break
Higher you climb, trouble in mind
lungs labor, heights hurl vistas
Oxygen hangs ready
overhead. In the event put on
the child’s mask first. Breathe normally

- Adrienne Rich

Birches

" I wish on a tree" by Neha

.....So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

- Robert Frost

Tiare Tahiti

"The View" by Neha

Mamua, when our laughter ends,
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,
Are dust about the doors of friends,
Or scent ablowing down the night,
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,
Comes our immortality.
Mamua, there waits a land
Hard for us to understand.
Out of time, beyond the sun,
All are one in Paradise,
You and Pupure are one,
And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
There the Eternals are, and there
The Good, the Lovely, and the True,
And Types, whose earthly copies were
The foolish broken things we knew;
There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;
The real, the never-setting Star;
And the Flower, of which we love
Faint and fading shadows here;
Never a tear, but only Grief;
Dance, but not the limbs that move;
Songs in Song shall disappear;
Instead of lovers, Love shall be;
For hearts, Immutability;
And there, on the Ideal Reef,
Thunders the Everlasting Sea!

And my laughter, and my pain,
Shall home to the Eternal Brain.
And all lovely things, they say,
Meet in Loveliness again;
Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet,
And the hands of Matua,
Stars and sunlight there shall meet,
Coral's hues and rainbows there,
And Teura's braided hair;
And with the starred 'tiare's' white,
And white birds in the dark ravine,
And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night,
And jewels, and evening's after-green,
And dawns of pearl and gold and red,
Mamua, your lovelier head!
And there'll no more be one who dreams
Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff,
Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,
All time-entangled human love.
And you'll no longer swing and sway
Divinely down the scented shade,
Where feet to Ambulation fade,
And moons are lost in endless Day.
How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,
Where there are neither heads nor flowers?
Oh, Heaven's Heaven! -- but we'll be missing
The palms, and sunlight, and the south;
And there's an end, I think, of kissing,
When our mouths are one with Mouth...

Tau here, Mamua,
Crown the hair, and come away!
Hear the calling of the moon,
And the whispering scents that stray
About the idle warm lagoon.
Hasten, hand in human hand,
Down the dark, the flowered way,
Along the whiteness of the sand,
And in the water's soft caress,
Wash the mind of foolishness,
Mamua, until the day.
Spend the glittering moonlight there
Pursuing down the soundless deep
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.
Dive and double and follow after,
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,
With lips that fade, and human laughter
And faces individual,
Well this side of Paradise!...
There's little comfort in the wise.

- Rupert Brooke, Papeete, February 1914

American Smooth

"Our dance" by Neha

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through,

ecstatic mimicry

being the sine qua non

of American Smooth.

And because I was distracted

by the effort of

keeping my frame

(the leftward lean, head turned

just enough to gaze out

past your ear and always

smiling, smiling),

I didn’t notice

how still you’d become until

we had done it

(for two measures?

four?)—achieved flight,

that swift and serene

magnificence,

before the earth

remembered who we were

and brought us down.

- Rita Dove

Hear a beautiful recital of "American Smooth" by Rita Dove here.

For strong women

Dancing Women by Henri Matisse

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

- Marge Piercy

John Anderson, My Jo

"Her contemplation" by Neha

John Anderson, my jo, John,

When we were first aquent;

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bonie brow was brent;

But now your brow is beld, John,

Your locks are like the snaw;

But blessings on your frosty pow,

John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither;

And mony a cantie day, John,

We’ve had wi’ ane anither:

Now we maun totter down, John,

And hand in hand we’ll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson, my jo.

- Robert Burns

My Papa's Waltz

Girl on a Pillow by Pablo Picasso

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother’s countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

- Theodre Roethke

If You Forget Me

"Roots of Sky" by Neha

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

- Pablo Neruda

Notes: I like this reading on YouTube

To Be of Use

"Clipped" by Neha

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

- Marge Piercy

Arrestati, sei bello

"Curves" by Neha

If you could offer me
One hour of repose
In which my soul might find peace;
If you could reveal to the darkest recesses of my mind,
My true self and the truth of my world.
Were it to come to pass, I would say
To the fleeting moment:
Stay, for thou art beautiful!
Then might I die
And let fearsome hell engulf me

- From Mefistofele, based in Goethe's story of Faust (Loving Frank by Nancy Horan)

"Arrestati, sei bello" Stay. For you are so beautiful.

Pilgrim's Progress

"Twirled" by Neha

..And to stir the mind

To a search after what it fain would find:

Things that seem to be hid in words obscure,

Do but the Godly mind the more allure;

To study what those sayings should contain

That speak to us in such a Cloudy strain...

- Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan (1678)

Saraktee jaye hai

Saraktee jaye hai rukh se naqaab ahista ahista

nikalataa aa raha hai aaftaab ahista ahista

Jawaan hone lage jab vo to ham se kar liyaa pardaa

hayaa yakalakht aayii aur shabaab ahista ahista

Shabefurkat kaa jaagaa hoon farishton ab to sone do

kabhee fursat men kar lenaa hisaab ahista ahista

Savaalevasl par unko uduu kaa khauf hai itna

Dabey honthon se dete hain javaab ahistaa ahistaa

Hamarey aur tumharey pyar men bass fark hai itna

Idhar to jaldee jaldee hai udhar aahistaa aahistaa

Woh bedardee se sar kaatein "ameer" aur main kahoon un se

Huzoor aahistaa aahistaa, janaab ahista ahista

- Written by Ameer Menai, Sung by Jagjit Singh

Key to urdu words: sarakti - to slip, naqab - veil, ahista - slowly, aftaab - ( vision of) moon, yakalaKht - modesty/shame, shabefurkat - night of separation, savaalevasl - question-answers, uduu - villian,

The Whitsun Weddings

....There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Travelling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

- Philip Larkin