The dug-out

(Ian Britton/FreeFoto.com)

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head...
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

(by Siegfried Sassoon, 1886-1967)

Psalm 9

O rose beyond the reach of time and of the senses
O kiss enveloped in the scarves of all the winds
surprise me with one dream
that my madness will recoil from you
Recoiling from you
In order to approach you
I discovered time
Approaching you
in order to recoil from you
I discovered my senses
Between approach and recoil
there is a stone the size of a dream
It does not approach
It does not recoil
You are my country
A stone is not what I am
therefore I do not like to face the sky
nor do I die level with the ground
but I am a stranger, always a stranger

(by Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008)

Risk

Peony by Katinka Matson

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

(by Anaïs Nin, 1903-77)

Some fill with each good rain

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That 'love' is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.

(14th century Persian ghazal by Hafiz — Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi — as translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

From Ladinsky D. (1999) The gift: poems by Hafiz the great Sufi master. Penguin: New York, via The Songs of Hafiz

Even in Kyoto

Even in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo's cry—
I long for Kyoto

(by Matsuo Basho, 1644-94)

Whenever my lover touches me

Like the algae on the well
from which the townsfolk drink,
my paleness goes away
whenever my lover touches me.
And whenever he leaves
it spreads over again.

(translation of an ancient Tamil poem from Kuruntokai, "Anthology of 400 Short Poems on Love")