"Kinder than Man" by Althea Davis

And God,

please let the deer

on the highway

get some kind of heaven.

Something with tall soft grass

and sweet reunion.

Let the moths in porch lights

go some place

with a thousand suns,

that taste like sugar

and get swallowed whole.

May the mice

in oil and glue

have forever dry, warm fur

and full bellies.

If I am killed

for simply living,

let death be kinder

than man.

Beth Affolter

[I wish I were her Nubian maid]

(Boy)

I wish I were her Nubian maid,

        her attendant in secret,

                as she brings her a bowl of mandragoras.

It is in her hand,

        while she gives pleasure.

In other words:

she would grant me

        the hue of her whole body.

(Boy)

I wish I were the laundryman

        of my beloved's clothes,

                for even just a month!

I would be strengthened

        by grasping the garments

                that touch her body.

For I would be washing out the moringa oils

        that are in her kerchief.

Then I'd rub my body

        with her castoff garments,

                and she ...

O how I would be in joy and delight,

        my body vigorous!

(Boy)

I wish I were her little signet ring,

        the keeper of her finger!

I would see her love

        each and every day,

And I would steal her heart.

Albert Schnyder

"Voices" by C.P. Cavafy

Ideal voices, the beloved voices

of those who have died or of those who are

lost to us as if they were dead.

Sometimes they speak to us in dreams;

sometimes, in thought, the mind hears them.

And with their sounds for a moment return

sounds from our life's first poetry --

like music at night, far off, fading out.

Kimio Muraoka

"A Blessing" by James Wright

 

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.   
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me   
And nuzzled my left hand.   
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Jan Hendrik Scheltema

"Little Father" by Li-Young Lee

I buried my father
in the sky.
Since then, the birds
clean and comb him every morning   
and pull the blanket up to his chin   
every night.

I buried my father underground.   
Since then, my ladders
only climb down,
and all the earth has become a house   
whose rooms are the hours, whose doors   
stand open at evening, receiving   
guest after guest.
Sometimes I see past them
to the tables spread for a wedding feast.

I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,   
my little root who won’t drink milk,   
little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,   
little clock spring newly wet
in the fire, little grape, parent to the future   
wine, a son the fruit of his own son,   
little father I ransom with my life. 

Liu Xiaodong

Morrígan to the Brown Bull, from the Táin Bó Cúailnge

 

Dark one are you restless
            do you guess they gather
to certain slaughter
            the wise raven
groans aloud
            that enemies infest
the fair fields
            ravaging in packs
learn I discern
            rich plains
softly wavelike
            baring their necks
greenness of grass
            beauty of blossoms
on the plains war
            grinding heroic
hosts to dust
            cattle groans the Badb
the raven ravenous
            among corpses of men
affliction and outcry
            and war everlasting
raging over Cuailnge
            death of sons
death of kinsmen
            death        death  !

Raina Gentry

"Grandmother in the Garden" by Louise Glück

 

The grass below the willow
Of my daughter’s wash is curled
With earthworms, and the world
Is measured into row on row
Of unspiced houses, painted to seem real.
The drugged Long Island summer sun drains
Pattern from those empty sleeves, beyond my grandson
Squealing in his pen. I have survived my life.
The yellow daylight lines the oak leaf
And the wire vines melt with the unchanged changes
Of the baby. My children have their husbands’ hands.
My husband’s framed, propped bald as a baby on their pianos,
My tremendous man. I close my eyes. And all the clothes
I have thrown out come back to me, the hollows
Of my daughters’ slips…they drift; I see the sheer
Summer cottons drift, equivalent to air.

Patricia Polacco