Index
Don't Worry
by Anna Kamienska (Translated by Grażyna Drabik and David Curzon)
Don't worry there'll still be a lot of suffering
For now you have the right to cling to the sleeve
of someone's
blunt friendship
To be happy is a duty which you neglect
A careless user of time
you send days like geese to the
meadow
Don't worry you'll die many times
until you learn at the very end to love life
Waiting
by Leza Lowitz
You keep waiting for something to happen,
the thing that lifts you out of yourself,catapults you into doing all the things you've put off
the great things you're meant to do in your life,but somehow never quite get to.
You keep waiting for the planets to shiftthe new moon to bring news,
the universe to align, something to give.Meanwhile, the pile of papers, the laundry, the dishes the job –
it all stacks up while you keep hopingfor some miracle to blast down upon you,
scattering the piles to the winds.Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.
Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.But all the while, life goes on in its messy way.
And then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty...and some part of you realizes you are not alone
and you find signs of this in the animal kingdomwhen a snake sheds its skin its eyes glaze over,
it slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,and when caterpillar turns to butterfly
if the pupa is brushed, it will die –and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg
it's because the thing is too small, too small,and it needs to break out.
And midlife walks you into that wisdomthat this is what transformation looks like –
the mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,the yearning and writhing and pushing,
until one day, one dayyou emerge from the wreck
embracing both the immense dawnand the dusk of the body,
glistening, beautifuljust as you are.
Agnipath
by Harivansh Rai Bachchan
वृक्ष हों भले खड़े,
हों घने, हों बड़े,
एक पत्र छाँह भी
मांग मत! मांग मत! मांग मत!
अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ!तू न थकेगा कभी,
तू न थमेगा कभी,
तू न मुड़ेगा कभी,
कर शपथ! कर शपथ! कर शपथ!
अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ!यह महान दृश्य है,
चल रहा मनुष्य है,
अश्रु, स्वेद, रक्त से
लथ-पथ, लथ-पथ, लथ-पथ,
अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ!
What I Like About The Trees
by Tony Hoagland
What I like about the trees is how
They do not talk about the failure of their parents
And what I like about the grasses is that
They are not grasses in recoveryAnd what I like about the flowers is
That they are not flowers in need of
empowerment or validation. They swayUpon their thorny stems
As if whatever was about to happen next tonight
was sure to be completely interesting.
Manifesto
by Margot Schilpp
I know that dying is how we escape
the rest of our lives. I think that trees
send us a message: do not believeyou are lucky. The skins of apples
and the peeler will marry; it's simply
a question of when. Believein mourning and carrion birds.
Look how their fleshy treasures
dissolve in the sun before their very eyes.To love something
you must have considered what it means
to do without. You must have thoughtabout it—the coefficient of the body
is another body—but do not forget
that there are people who are willingto staple your palm to your chest.
Know there are places it isn't wise to go.
Begin again if you must: there are waysto make up for what you have been before,
the dust in the corners that collects you.
Sympathy is overrated.Rethink how lack
becomes everyone's master, drives us
into town and spends our money.Quiet: the trees are napping.
Water meets itself again.
We reach for the days that precede usand the world keeps us from knowing
too much. The body loves music,
the abandoned road of it;each day a peel
lengthens in the shadow of blossoms,
fabric weaves itself into light.Pay attention to the patterns. They repeat—
terraces erode, groves lie fallow—
order is cognate of joy.
Why Not?
by Julia Fehrenbacher
If death is inevitable, if it is a sure
thing that this face, these hands,
this body that holds a lifetime of this living,
will, someday, no longer be here,
if you don't get to take a single thing with you —then —
why spend a moment more refusing,
worrying about who might disapprove,
measuring every move
as if there is some fixed formula you must
find? Why hold tight to anything?Why not, instead, love every honeyed drop of yourself,
why not leap into life—belly-laughing
and light, light like the soft kiss of moonlight,
light like the light that you are,
have always been, will always be—why not take this quickly passing day
by the hand and dance
like there's no tomorrow? And if you're too tired
to dance, why not rest lightly here
just as you are?