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.