DAWN REVISITED

Imagine you wake up

with a second chance; the blue jay

hawks his pretty wares

and the oak still stands, spreading

glorious shade. If you don’t look back,

the future never happens.

How good to rise in sunlight,

in the prodigal smell of biscuits -

eggs and sausage on the grill.

The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open

to a blank page. Come on,

shake a leg! You’ll never know

who’s down there, frying those eggs,

if you don’t get up and see.

Rita Dove

1952

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and author. From 1993-1995 she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress.

HARLEM (2)

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore -

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

1902-1967

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

VIGIL

Life is too short to sleep through.
Stay up late, wait until the sea of traffic ebbs,
until noise has drained from the world
like blood from the cheeks of the full moon.
Everyone else around you has succumbed:
they lie like tranquillised pets on a vet's table;
they languish on hospital trolleys and friends' couches,
on iron beds in hostels for the homeless,
under feather duvets at tourist B&Bs.
The radio, devoid of listeners to confide in,
turns repetitious. You are your own voice-over.
You are alone in the bone-weary tower
of your bleary-eyed, blinking lighthouse,
watching the spillage of tide on the shingle inlet.
You are the single-minded one who hears
time shaking from the clock's fingertips
like drops, who watches its hands
chop years into diced seconds,
who knows that when the church bell
tolls at 2 or 3 it tolls unmistakably for you.
You are the sole hand on deck when
temperatures plummet and the hull
of an iceberg is jostling for prominence.
Your confidential number is the life-line
where the sedated long-distance voices
of despair hold out muzzily for an answer.
You are the emergency services' driver
ready to dive into action at the first
warning signs of birth or death.
You spot the crack in night's façade
even before the red-eyed businessman
on look-out from his transatlantic seat.
You are the only reliable witness to when
the light is separated from the darkness,
who has learned to see the dark in its true
colours, who has not squandered your life.



Dennis O’Driscoll
1954-2012

Dennis O'Driscoll was an Irish poet, essayist, critic and editor. He was regarded by many as one of the best European poets of his time.

QUILTS

Like a fading piece of cloth

I am a failure.

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter

My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able

To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days

When just woven I could keep water

From seeping through

Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave

Dazzled the sunlight with my 

Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories

The tasks I can no longer complete

Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only 

this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end

Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt

That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to

Will hear my whispers

And cuddle

near

Nikki Giovanni

1943-

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. is an American writer, commentator, activist, and educator. She is currently a distinguished professor of English at Virginia Tech.

END OF THE WORLD

The day the world ends

will be clean and orderly

like the notebook

of the best student in the class.

The town drunk

will sleep in a ditch,

the express train will pass

without stopping at the station

and the regimental band 

will endlessly practice

the march they have played in the square for twenty years.

Only some children

will leave their kites tangled

in telephone lines

to run home crying

not knowing what to tell their mothers

and I will carve my initials

in the bark of a linden tree

knowing that it won’t do any good.

The kids will play football

in the empty lot on the edge of town.

The holy sects will come out 

to sing on the street corners.

The crazy old woman will pass with her parasol.

And I will say to myself: “The world cannot end,

because here on the patio the pigeons and the sparrows

 are still squabbling over the grains."

Jorge Teillier
1935-1996

translated from the Spanish by Miller Williams

WITH A GREEN SCARF

With a green scarf I blindfolded 

the eyes of the trees

and asked them to catch me.

At once the trees caught me,

their leaves shaking with laughter.

I blindfolded the birds

with a scarf of clouds

and asked them to catch me.

The birds caught me

with a song.

Then with a smile I blindfolded

my sorrow

and the day after it caught me

with a love.

I blindfolded the sun

with my nights

and asked the sun to catch me.

I know where you are, the sun said,

just behind that time.

Don’t bother to hide any longer.

Don’t bother to hide any longer,

said all of them,

as well as all the feelings

I tried to blindfold.

Marin Sorescu
1936-1997

Translated from the Romanian by Michael Hamburger

AND WE LOVE LIFE

And we love life if we find a way to it.
We dance in between martyrs and raise a minaret for violet or palm trees.

We love life if we find a way to it.

And we steal from the silkworm a thread to build a sky and fence in this departure.
We open the garden gate for the jasmine to go out as a beautiful day on the streets.

We love life if we find a way to it.

And we plant, where we settle, some fast growing plants, and harvest the dead.
We play the flute like the colour of the faraway, sketch over the dirt corridor a neigh.
We write our names one stone at a time, O lightning make the night a bit clearer.

We love life if we find a way to it. . . . .




Mahmoud Darwish
1942-2008

translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah