Silences

for Elizabeth

1
Poetry is a weapon, and should be used,
though not in the crudity of violence.
It is a prayer before an unknown altar,
a spell to bless the silence.

2
There is a music beyond all this,
beyond all forms of grievance,
where anger lays its muzzle down
into the lap of silence.

3
Or some butterfly script,
fathomed only by the other,
as supple fingers draw
a silent message from the tangible.

John Montague

Night Blooming Jasmine/Il Gelsomino Notturno

And in the hour when blooms unfurl,
thoughts of my loved ones come to me.
              The moths of evening swirl
              around the snowball tree.

Nothing by now shouts or sings;
one house only whispers then hushes.
              Nestlings sleep beneath wings,
              like eyes beneath their lashes.

From open calyces there flows
a ripe strawberry scent, in waves.
              A lamp in the house glows.
              Grasses are born on graves.

A late bee sighs, back from its tours
and no cell vacant anymore.
              The Hen and her cheeping stars
              cross their threshing floor.

All through the night the flowers flare,
exhaling scent into the wind.
              The lamp now climbs the stair,
              shines from above, is dimmed…

It’s dawn: the petals, slightly worn,
close up again—each bud to brood,
              in its soft, secret urn,
              on some yet-nameless good.

Giovanni Pascoli

Translated by Geoffrey Brock

Il Gelsomino Notturno

 

E s'aprono i fiori notturni,
nell'ora che penso a' miei cari.
              Sono apparse in mezzo ai viburni
              le farfalle crepuscolari.

Da un pezzo si tacquero i gridi:
là sola una casa bisbiglia.
              Sotto l'ali dormono i nidi,
              come gli occhi sotto le ciglia.

Dai calici aperti si esala
l'odore di fragole rosse.
              Splende un lume là nella sala.
              Nasce l’erba sopra le fosse.

Un'ape tardiva sussurra
trovando già prese le celle.
              La Chioccetta per l'aia azzurra
              va col suo pigolio di stelle.

Per tutta la notte s'esala
l'odore che passa col vento.
              Passa il lume su per la scala;
              brilla al primo piano: s'è spento…

È l'alba: si chiudono i petali
un poco gualciti; si cova,
              dentro l'urna molle e segreta,
              non so che felicità nuova.

 

Pear Tree

Silver dust  

lifted from the earth,  

higher than my arms reach,  

you have mounted.  

O silver,

higher than my arms reach  

you front us with great mass;  

  

no flower ever opened  

so staunch a white leaf,  

no flower ever parted silver

from such rare silver;  

  

O white pear,  

your flower-tufts,  

thick on the branch,  

bring summer and ripe fruits

in their purple hearts.

H.D.

Song

My heart, my dove, my snail, my sail, my   

    milktooth, shadow, sparrow, fingernail,   

         flower-cat and blossom-hedge, mandrake

root now put to bed, moonshell, sea-swell,   

    manatee, emerald shining back at me,   

         nutmeg, quince, tea leaf and bone, zither,

cymbal, xylophone; paper, scissors, then

    there’s stone—Who doesn’t come through the door   

         to get home?

Cynthia Zarin

The Republic of Poetry

                   For Chile

In the republic of poetry,

a train full of poets

rolls south in the rain

as plum trees rock

and horses kick the air,

and village bands

parade down the aisle

with trumpets, with bowler hats,

followed by the president

of the republic,

shaking every hand.

In the republic of poetry,

monks print verses about the night

on boxes of monastery chocolate,

kitchens  in restaurants

use odes for recipes

from eel to artichoke,

and poets eat for free.

In the republic of poetry,

poets read to the baboons

at the zoo, and all the primates,

poets and baboons alike, scream for joy.

In the republic of poetry,

poets rent a helicopter

to bombard the national palace

with poems on bookmarks,

and everyone in the courtyard

rushes to grab a poem

fluttering from the sky,

blinded by weeping.

In the republic of poetry,

the guard at the airport

will not allow you to leave the country

until you declaim a poem for her

and she says Ah! Beautiful.

Martin Espada 

from The Republic of Poetry

Veteran

I don’t believe in ashes; some of the others do.
I don’t believe in better or best; some of the others do.
I don’t believe in a thousand flowers or the first robin
of the year or statues made of dust. Some of the others do

I don’t believe in seeking sheet music
by Boston Common on a snowy day, don’t believe
in the lighting of malls seasonably
When I’m sleeping I don’t believe in time
as we own it, though some of the others might

Sad lace on green. Veterans stamping the leafy snow
I don’t believe in holidays
long-lasting and artificial. Some of the others do
I don’t believe in starlings of crenelated wings
I don’t believe in berries, red & orange, hanging on
threadlike twigs. Some of the others do

I don’t believe in the light on the river
moving with it or the green bulbs hanging on the elms
Outdoors, indoors, I don’t believe in a gridlock of ripples
or the deep walls people live inside

Some of the others believe in food & drink & perfume
I don’t. And I don’t believe in shut-in time
for those who committed a crime
of passion. Like a sweetheart
of the iceberg or wings lost at sea

the wind is what I believe in,
the One that moves around each form

Fanny Howe

The Mercy

The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
in the hands of a young Scot, a seaman
who gave her a bite and wiped her mouth for her
with a red bandana and taught her the word,
"orange," saying it patiently over and over.
A long autumn voyage, the days darkening
with the black waters calming as night came on,
then nothing as far as her eyes could see and space
without limit rushing off to the corners
of creation. She prayed in Russian and Yiddish
to find her family in New York, prayers
unheard or misunderstood or perhaps ignored
by all the powers that swept the waves of darkness
before she woke, that kept "The Mercy" afloat
while smallpox raged among the passengers
and crew until the dead were buried at sea
with strange prayers in a tongue she could not fathom.
"The Mercy," I read on the yellowing pages of a book
I located in a windowless room of the library
on 42nd street, sat thirty-one days
offshore in quarantine before the passengers
disembarked. There a story ends. Other ships
arrived, "Tancred" out of Glasgow, "The Neptune"
registered as Danish, "Umberto IV,"
the list goes on for pages, November gives
way to winter, the sea pounds the alien shore.
Italian miners from Piemonte dig
under towns in western Pennsylvania
only to rediscover the same nightmare
they left at home. A nine-year-old girl travels
all night by train with one suitcase and an orange.
She learns that mercy is something you can eat
again and again while the juice spills over
your chin, you can wipe it away with the back
of your hands and you can never get enough.

Philip Levine