From The Long Sad Party / Mark Strand

Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field,
about how things pass,
how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

Someone was saying
how the wind dies down but comes back,
how shells are the coffins of wind
but the weather continues.
It was a long night
and someone said something
about the moon shedding its white
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead
but more of the same.

Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war,
a room with two candles
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.
We began to believe
the night would not end.

Someone was saying
the music was over and no one had noticed.
Then someone said something
about the planets, about the stars,
how small they were, how far away.

Oh Where / David Berman

Where did you go, my dear, my day;
Where, oh where, did you go?
To market, to maker of market, to say
Too much of the little I know.

Where did you go, my dear, my year;
Why did you flee from me?
I went from here to there to here
Loitering breathlessly.

Where did you go, my life, my own,
Decades gone in a wink?
Some things are better left unknown
Some thoughts too thick to think.

निराशावादी / रामधारी सिंह "दिनकर"

पर्वत पर, शायद, वृक्ष न कोई शेष बचा,
धरती पर, शायद, शेष बची है नहीं घास;
उड़ गया भाप बनकर सरिताओं का पानी,
बाकी न सितारे बचे चाँद के आस-पास ।

क्या कहा कि मैं घनघोर निराशावादी हूँ?
तब तुम्हीं टटोलो हृदय देश का, और कहो,
लोगों के दिल में कहीं अश्रु क्या बाकी है?
बोलो, बोलो, विस्मय में यों मत मौन रहो ।

कंठ जल रहा है / दीनानाथ सुमित्र

गीत मगन मन कैसे गाऊँ
कंठ जल रहा है

सुना नहीं पंछी का गाना
रात अँधेरी बनी ठिकाना
सुख का जाना दुख का आना
रोज चल रहा है
गीत मगन मन कैसे गाऊँ
कंठ जल रहा है

प्यार बिक रहा, यार बिक रहा
दवा संग बीमार बिक रहा
निष्ठुर है आभार बिक रहा
नहीं खल रहा है
गीत मगन मन कैसे गाऊँ
कंठ जल रहा है

लुप्त हो गई है चेतनता
कहाँ खो गई नम्र-नम्रता
मरी-मरी-सी है सज्जनता
जीत छल रहा है
गीत मगन मन कैसे गाऊँ
कंठ जल रहा है

मार्ग कठिन है लक्ष्य न दिखता
टिकने वाला वक्ष न दिखता
ताज न दिखता तख्त न दिखता
सत्य गल रहा है
गीत मगन मन कैसे गाऊँ
कंठ जल रहा है

Present / Sonia Sanchez

This woman vomiting her
hunger over the world
this melancholy woman forgotten
before memory came
this yellow movement bursting forth like
coltrane's melodies all mouth
buttocks moving like palm tress,
this honeycoatedalabamianwoman
raining rhythm to blue/black/smiles
this yellow woman carrying beneath her breasts
pleasures without tongues
this woman whose body waves
desert patterns,
this woman wet with wandering,
reviving the beauty of forests and winds
is telling you secrets
gather up your odors and listen
as she sings the mold from memory.

there is no place
for a soft / black / woman.
there is no smile green enough or
summertime words warm enough to allow my growth.
and in my head
i see my history
standing like a shy child
and i chant lullabies
as i ride my past on horseback
tasting the thirst of yesterday tribes
hearing the ancient/black/woman
me, singing hay-hay-hay-hay-ya-ya-ya.
hay-hay-hay-hay-ya-ya-ya.
like a slow scent
beneath the sun
and i dance my
creation and my grandmothers gathering
from my bones like great wooden birds
spread their wings
while their long/legged/laughter
stretched the night.
and i taste the
seasons of my birth. mangoes. papayas.
drink my woman/coconut/milks
stalk the ancient grandfathers
sipping on proud afternoons
walk like a song round my waist
tremble like a new/born/child troubles
with new breaths
and my singing
becomes the only sound of a
blue/black/magical/woman. walking.
womb ripe. walking. loud with mornings. walking.
making pilgrimage to herself. walking.

आप का ए'तिबार कौन करे / दाग़ देहलवी

आप का ए'तिबार कौन करे
रोज़ का इंतिज़ार कौन करे

ज़िक्र-ए-मेहर-ओ-वफ़ा तो हम करते
पर तुम्हें शर्मसार कौन करे

हो जो उस चश्म-ए-मस्त से बे-ख़ुद
फिर उसे होशियार कौन करे

तुम तो हो जान इक ज़माने की
जान तुम पर निसार कौन करे

आफ़त-ए-रोज़गार जब तुम हो
शिकवा-ए-रोज़गार कौन करे

अपनी तस्बीह रहने दे ज़ाहिद
दाना दाना शुमार कौन करे

हिज्र में ज़हर खा के मर जाऊँ
मौत का इंतिज़ार कौन करे

आँख है तर्क-ए-ज़ुल्फ़ है सय्याद
देखें दिल का शिकार कौन करे

वा'दा करते नहीं ये कहते हैं
तुझ को उम्मीद-वार कौन करे

'दाग़' की शक्ल देख कर बोले
ऐसी सूरत को प्यार कौन करे

As He Walks Away / Mahmoud Darwish

The enemy who drinks tea in our hovel
has a horse in smoke, a daughter with
thick eyebrow, brown eyes and long hair
braided over her shoulders
like a night of songs.
He's never without her picture
when he comes to drink our tea
but he forgets to tell us about her nightly chores
about a horse of ancient melodies
abandoned on a hilltop.
Relaxing in our shack, the enemy
slings his rifle over my grandfather's chair
eats our bread like any guest,
dozes off for a while on the wicker couch.
Then, as he stoops to pat our cat on the way out,
says:'Don't blame the victim.'
'And who might that be?' we ask.
'Blood that won't dry in the night.'
His coat-buttons flash as he walks away.
Good evening to you! Say hello to our well!
Say hello to our fig trees! Step gingerly
on our shadows in the barley fields.
Greet our pines on high. But please
don't leave the gate open at night.
And don't forget the horse's terror of airplanes.
And greet us there, if you have time.
That's what we want to say at the doorstep.
He hears it well enough,
but muffles it with a cough,
and waves it aside.
As long as the earth turns around itself inside us
the war will not end.
Let's be good then.
He asked us to be good while we're here.
He recites Yeats's poem about an Irish Airman:
'Those that I fight I don't hate,
Those that I guard I don't love.'
Then he leaves our wooden ramshackle hut
and walks eighty meters to our old stone house on the edge of the plain.
Greet our house for us, stranger.
The coffee cups are the same.
Can you smell our fingers still on them?
Can you tell your daughter
with the braid and thick eyebrows
she has an absent friend
who wishes to visit her, to enter her mirror
and see his secret.
How was she able to trace his age in this place?
Say hello to her, if you
have time.
What we want to tell him
he hears well enough, but muffles with a cough
and waves aside.
His coat buttons flash
as he walks away.

(Translated from Arabic by Sargon Boulos)