The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XIII

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.


Translated by Stephen Mitchell


Rainer Maria Rilke

I love this poem, "Eyes Wide Open" by Sam Hamill. You can read and listen to Hamill read the poem here

Someone had been walking in and out
Of the world without coming
To much decision about anything.
The sun seemed too hot most of the time.
There weren't enough birds around
And the hills had a silly look
When he got on top of one.
The girls in heaven, however, thought
Nothing of asking to see his watch
Like you would want someone to tell
A joke--"Time," they'd say, "what's
That mean--time?", laughing with the edges
Of their white mouths, like a flutter of paper
In a madhouse. And he'd stumble over
General Sherman or Elizabeth B.
Browning, muttering, "Can't you keep
Your big wings out of the aisle?" But down
Again, there'd be millions of people without
Enough to eat and men with guns just
Standing there shooting each other.

So he wanted to throw something
And he picked up a baseball.

By Kenneth Patchen

I read some wonderful translations of Japanese poets by Kenneth Rexroth here

Michael Shorb is one of my favorite poets. His poetry collection, WHALE WALKER'S MORNING, is incredible.

PLANET SUNBURN

It becomes a joke before
we even understand it,
relegated to a kingdom
of cliché:
the whole global warming thing--
it’s that moment speeding
down a mountain road
when you realize
the brakes are gone,
when you swim over and past
the shark net barrier
into darkening water--

the other morning in southern
Australia koalas staggered
onto public highways
in 120 degree heat,
begging passing humans for water--

the air crackled with heat
even after a flood of crows
rode the sun to the rim of distance--

as though nature was just joking around,
all those species about to go
extinct or insane only theoretical,
nothing to dry the moisture from your fields,
drain the animals from forests
and fish from the sea--

and you, every once
in a while, could just
write a check
or watch a special on PBS,
making everything all right.

By Michael Shorb

from WHALE WALKER'S MORNING

I am discovering the ancient Chinese poet Li Po:

Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
By Li Po
Translated By Sam Hamill

The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178453