Maya Angelou - His Day is Done

Til Turid

Turid

en dag da vi var unge, yngre enn barna våre er nå

virvlet vi på stranden der blå møter blå

barbente, i lange flagrende skjørt i Listavinden

og barna svinsende som andunger etter oss

men brått et smerteskrik fra midt i rekken

en liten fot hadde tråkket på en strandtorn

små røde dråper blandet seg med strandtornblomstens blå

"oj se der!" sa du, "for en fin ny farge du har laget - lilla!"

og du løftet barnet opp, tørket foten forsiktig, alt mens barnet

tittet ned på den plutselig så lilla blomsten, imponert over

sitt verk

akkurat slik har du jo i alle år løftet oss alle, Turid

pekt på fargene i blå

 *

Wislawa Szymborska: The End and the Beginning

The End and the Beginning

After every war

someone has to clean up.

Things won’t

straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall.

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.

Wislawa Szymborska, “The End and the Beginning” from Miracle Fair, translated by Joanna Trzeciak. Copyright © 2001 by Joanna Trzeciak. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.


Wikipedia says this about Wislawa Szymborska, and The Poetry Foundation says this.

* 

Li Bai: All the birds

All the birds have flown up and gone

A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.

We never tire of looking at each other

Only the mountain and I.

- Li Bai, Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"Li Bai Chanting a Poem", by Liang K'ai (1140 - 1210)

*

A Poem for Spring

e.e. cummings: O sweet spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

          fingers of

purient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee

,has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

      beauty   .how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

        (but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

          thou answerest

them only with

                        spring)

*

Suitable Poetry: Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie