Friday, April 15, 2016

Leave Me Hidden

I was having trouble deciding
which to watch: Night
of the Living Bloggers, or Attack of the Neck-Brace People.
In the end I just went for a walk. 

In the woods I stopped wondering why
of all trees
this one: my hand
pressed to fissures
and ridges of 

bark’s hugely magnified
fingerprint, forehead
resting against it
finally, feeling
distinctly 

a heartbeat, vast, silently
booming there deep in
my hidden leaves, blessed
motherworld, personal
underworld, thank you 

thank you. 
by Franz Wright.  Excerpted from F
Copyright © 2013 by Franz Wright.  
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of  Penguin Random House.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

CANDLES            by Constantine Cavafy, translated by David Coomler at
https://hokku.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/the-days-dwindle-down-cavafys-candles/
lineofcandles
The days to come stand before us
Like a row of lighted candles --
Golden, warm, and lively.
The days gone by remain behind,
A sad line of extinguished candles,
The nearest still smoking;
Cold candles, melted and bent.
I don't want to look at them; their form saddens me,
And it saddens me to remember their first light.
I look ahead to my lit candles.
I don't want to turn back, to see and tremble:
How fast the dark line grows --
How fast the extinguished candles multiply.