Debt
I used to drop my pocket money
into the rain grates by the road
taking them for piggy-banks–
that’s why it’s the sea
that owes me most
–Sunay Akin, Turkey
International & Travel Poems
Overture
Who can open the door,
of the green river,
of the golden clouds,
of my heart?
— By Zuhur Dixon, Iraq
Poem For My Son
I seem to know all about you:
your time, your place, your name,
the clean Indian-wheat colour of your skin,
your unpolished words.
But I know that there are also sounds
that you do not know, shapes
that you wouldn’t recognize.
For instance, the owl’s lean dark cry,
or the sea at Puri
during a small moon’s night.
And, at this hour, when
you are breathing so quietly
beside your mother,
I seem to hear a faraway whisper
that almost tells me
you’re not mine.
I hear the owl’s cry,
the gentle expanding roar
of the blue waters of Puri.
Never mind. I know where my night sleeps,
undisturbed by every sound and thought,
so peacefully.
–Bibhu Padhi, India
Distances Of Longing
When you go away and I can’t
follow you up with a letter,
it is because the distance
between you and me
is shorter than the sound of Oh,
because the words are smaller
than the distance
of my longing.
— By Fawziyya Abu Khalid, Saudi Arabia
Translated by May Jayyusi
Sonnet 15
When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check’d even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
–William Shakespeare
Excerpt From The Seasons: Autumn
But see the fading many-colored woods,
shade deepening over shade,
the country round
imbrown;
a crowded umbrage,
dusk and dun,
of every hue from wan declining green
to soot dark.
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
a gentler mood inspires;
for now the leaf
incessant rustles from the mournful grove,
oft startling such as,
studious,
walk below,
and slowly circles through the waving air.
–James Thomson
Song
I placed my dream in a boat
and the boat into the sea;
then I ripped the sea with my hands
so that my dream would sink.
My hands are still wet
with the blue of the slashed waves,
and the color that runs from my fingers
colors the deserted sands.
The wind arrives from far away,
night bends itself with the cold;
under the water in a boat
my dream is dying away.
I’ll cry as much as necessary
to make the sea grow
so that my boat will sink to the bottom
and my dream disappear.
Then everything will be perfect:
the beach smooth, the waters orderly,
my eyes dry like stones
and my two hands–broken.
–Cecilia Meireles, Brazil
Cuernavaca
There’s a deep murmur unravelled,
the air is a song of feather,
a soft babble of grass.
There’s a memory of heaven revived,
hum of life and plea.
There’s this need, like a baby’s, to be loved.
–Aline Patterson
Inside
It hurts, the things of old,
attachment to the things of old.
Let go of them,
let them go as they are,
from afar comes the sound of
the scissors of the rag-picker.
–Kim Chiha
Lucia
I was born woman.
They say my eyes were very bright
and they called me Lucia,
the one who gives light.
The fisherman leave early in the morning,
on fragile boats.
The women wave their hands from the pier.
They don’t know when the men will return.
Every night,
when the moon and the stars
are the only lights,
all the women of town gather on the pier again
and sing to the asters,
invoke them to guide their men home.
My father was proud of me.
Two hours after the birth
he threw a bottle of anisette
on the door of the house
to wash the newborn with sweetness and good luck.
She was a princess,
her eyes the most beautiful of the island,
the kingdom of her father the richest.
When the armed men broke into the walls of the city
she was found brushing her hair
by the window on the water.
He loved her at once
and offered her the life of her father
and the kingdom.
She refused.
He took her eyes,
her hair,
burned down the city and left the island again.
Bats are blind.
They travel through night without candles.
I was born woman,
they call me Lucia,
but the journey is a long one
and the lighthouse still far.
–Lucia Casalinuovo, Italy
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