World Poetry Day 2018

Hello again.

I fell out of the world there, for a little while.

I'm not sure that I'm back, yet, but poetry always helps, and World Poetry Day feels like a good excuse to wake this blog up again.

So without further ado, some quiet spring poems, on this dreary, snowy day:

Things in a Spring Garden - Wang Wei
Trans. Chou Ping and Tony Barnstone

Last night's rain makes me sail in my wooden shoes.
I put on my shabby robe against the spring cold.
As I spade each open plot, white water spreads.
Red peach flowers protrude from the willow trees.
On the lawn I play chess, and by a small wood
dip out water with my pole and pail.
I could take a small deerskin table
and hide in the high grass of sunset.


In Perpetual Spring - Amy Gerstler
Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies   
and trip over the roots   
of a sweet gum tree,   
in search of medieval   
plants whose leaves,   
when they drop off   
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they   
plop into water.

Suddenly the archetypal   
human desire for peace   
with every other species   
wells up in you. The lion   
and the lamb cuddling up. 
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,   
queen of the weeds, revives   
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt   
there is a leaf to cure it.


Spring Quiet - Christina Rossetti
Gone were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;

Where in the whitethorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.

Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool green house:

Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
"We spread no snare;

"Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.

"Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be." 

Do you have any poems that you would like to share?