APRIL AND SILENCE

Spring lies desolate.

The velvet-dark ditch

crawls by my side

without reflections.

The only thing that shines

is yellow flowers.

I am carried in my shadow

like a violin in its black case.

The only thing I want to say

glitters out of reach

like the silver in a pawnbroker's.

Tomas Transtroemer

1931

translated by Robin Fulton

Tomas Transtroemer is a Swedish poet, writer and translator who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011.

NOW IN THIS WANING OF LIGHT

Now, in this waning of light,

I rock with the motion of morning;

In the cradle of all that is,

I'm lulled into half-sleep

By the lapping of water,

Cries of the sandpiper.

Water's my will, and my way,

And the spirit runs, intermittently,

In and out of the small waves,

Runs with the intrepid shorebirds - 

How graceful the small before danger!

In the first of the moon,

All's a scattering.

A shining.

Theodore Roethke

1908-1963

CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

Salisbury Cathedral From the East

J.M.W. Turner

1775-1851

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,

With winch and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,

Inhabited sky with hammers, defied gravity,

Deified stone, took up God's house to meet Him,

And came down to their suppers and small beer;

Every night slept, lay with their smelly wives,

Quarrelled and cuffed the children, lied,

Spat, sang, were happy or unhappy,

And every day took to the ladders again;

Impeded the rights of way of another summer's

Swallows; grew greyer, shakier, became less inclined

To fix a neighbour's roof of a fine evening,

Saw naves sprout arches, clerestories soar,

Cursed the loud fancy glaziers for their luck,

Somehow escaped the plague, got rheumatism,

Decided it was time to give it up,

To leave the spire to others; and stood in the crowd

Well back from the vestments at the consecration,

Envied the fat bishop his warm boots,

Cocked up a squint eye and said, 'I bloody did that.'

John Ormond

Welsh poet and film-maker

1923-1990

from SHAPE OF TIME

Doris Kareva

You aren't better than anyone,

You aren't worse than anyone.

You have been given the world.

See what there is to see.

Protect what is around you,

hold who is there beside you.

All creatures in their own way

are funny -

and fragile.

xx

The question isn't

how to be in style

but

how to live in truth

in the face of all the winds?

With mindfulness, courage,

patience, sympathy -

how to remain brave

when the spirit fails?

xx

Idleness is often empowering,

recreating oneself - 

just as the moon gradually

grows full once again,

a battery surely and

steadily recharges,

so everything, everyone

must have time for the self -

for mirth and laziness

time to be human.

Doris Kareva

1958

translated from the Estonian by Tina Aleman

ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO

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 wich 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

1875-1926

translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell

Bold italics in the last line are mine.

Archaïscher Torso Apollos

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,

darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber

sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,

in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug

der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen

der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen

zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz

unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz

und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern

aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,

die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

A CHORUS

Elizabeth Jennings

Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms,

Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows,

Over the cities with their factory darkness,

Over the lands where peace is still a power,

Over all these and all this planet carries

A power broods, invisible monarch, a stranger

To some, but by many trusted. Man's a believer

Until corrupted. This huge trusted power

Is spirit. He moves in the muscle of the world,

In continual creation. He burns the tides, he shines

From the matchless skies. He is the day's surrender.

Recognize him in the eye of the angry tiger,

In the sign of a child stepping at last into sleep,

In whatever touches, graces and confesses,

In hopes fulfilled or forgotten, in promises

Kept, in the resignation of old men -

This spirit, this power, this holder together of space

Is about, is aware, is working in your breathing.

But most he is the need that shows in hunger

And in the tears shed in the lonely fastness.

And in sorrow after anger. 

Elizabeth Jennings

1926-2001

STILL I RISE

Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history 

With your bitter, twisted lies, 

You may trod me in the very dirt 

But still, like dust, I'll rise. 

Does my sassiness upset you? 

Why are you beset with gloom? 

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells 

Pumping in my living room. 

Just like moons and like suns, 

With the certainty of tides, 

Just like hopes springing high, 

Still I'll rise. 

Did you want to see me broken? 

Bowed head and lowered eyes? 

Shoulders falling down like teardrops. 

Weakened by my soulful cries. 

Does my haughtiness offend you? 

Don't you take it awful hard 

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines 

Diggin' in my own back yard. 

You may shoot me with your words, 

You may cut me with your eyes, 

You may kill me with your hatefulness, 

But still, like air, I'll rise. 

Does my sexiness upset you? 

Does it come as a surprise 

That I dance like I've got diamonds 

At the meeting of my thighs? 

Out of the huts of history's shame 

I rise 

Up from a past that's rooted in pain 

I rise 

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, 

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear 

I rise 

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear 

I rise 

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, 

I am the dream and the hope of the slave. 

I rise 

I rise 

I rise.

Maya Angelou

born on the 4th April 1928

MONEY

Royal Bank Building, Toronto, Canada

courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I was led into captivity by the bitch business

Not in love but in what seemed a physical necessity

And now i cannot even watch the spring

The itch for subsistence having become responsibility.

Money the she-devil comes to us under many veils

Tactful at first, calling herself beauty

Tear away this disguise, she proposes paternal solicitude

Assuming the dishonest face of duty.

Suddenly you are in bed with a screeching tear-sheet

This is money at last without her night-dress

Clutching you against her fallen udders and sharp bones

In an unscrupulous and deserved embrace.

C.H. Sisson

1914-2003