new beginnings
Dawn (excerpt)
Hasso Krull
Estonian
Hahetab juba. Juba hahetab.
Puudele ilmuvad oksad. Okstele ilmuvad lehed.
Lehtedele ilmub värv. Värvile ilmub toon.
Toonile ilmub sügavus. Sügavusse mahedus.
Unenäod liigutavad võrkkesta ekraanil.
Sa liigutad küünarnukki. Ma puudutan sind.
Sa pöörad teise külje. Teki alla ilmub soojus.
Soojusesse ilmub uni. Unes ilmub päike.
Dawn has already broken. Already, dawn has broken.
Branches appear on the trees. Leaves appear on the branches.
Color appears on the leaves. Tone appears in the color.
Depth appears in the tone. Softening into the depth.
Dreams move on the screen of the retina.
You move your elbow. I touch you. You turn over.
Warmth appears under the blanket.
A dream appears in the warmth. The sun appears in the dream.
Begin
Anna Enqvist
Dutch
Er viel niets te noemen, tijd
hield zich stil. Het danste en bruiste
boven dof bonken. De donkere
holte zonder gebrek of verlangen
werd een huis voor een grenzeloos
wezen dat groeide, blind,
op de maat van mijn hartslag.
Zij was het. Woordeloos kon ze
het wiegende ritme ontvangen.
Ze luisterde naar dat kloppende
ruisen en hoorde daartegen
het haastige tikken van haar begin.
There was nothing to name, time
held its tongue. A dancing foaming
above dull thuds. The dark
hollow that neither lacked nor longed
became home to a boundless
being that grew, blind,
to the beat of my heart.
It was her. Wordless and free
to receive the soothing rhythm.
She listened to the rustling throb,
and heard, tucked up against it,
the hasty tick of her beginning.
Apaduru
Pattabhiramayya
Telugu
apadUruku lOnaitinE capala cittamu cEdanE
E pApi nApai darEnukA E pApamu lEka
vEDukala jUDanE Idu cEdela tODanE
gUDi atani mEDakEkidE
vADu nA celikADanE
This song in its entirety describes a young heroine who is distressed because the village is gossiping about her because she sneaked a glance - by her account, a harmless and innocent glance – at a man. We have taken one line from this song, describing that first glance, and built a chance meeting, leading to a first love, around it.
Since I Have Seen Your Face (excerpt)
Aurobindo
English
Since I have seen your face at the window, sweet
Love, you have thrown a spell on my heart, my feet.
My heart to your face, my feet to your window still
Bear me by force as if by an alien will.
O witch of beauty, O Circe with innocent eyes,
You have suddenly caught me fast in a net of sighs.
I look at the sunlight, I see your laughing face;
When I purchase a flower, it is you in your radiant grace.
wanderlust
Travel
Edna St. Vincent Millay
English
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn’t a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing;
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going
Haiku (untitled)
Matsuo Basho
Japanese
Junrei ni
Uchi-majiri-yuku
Ki-gan kana
(Ransetsu)
Behold the wild geese
wending homeward,
mingled with the
pilgrim bands
Naman Behuda Girde (excerpt)
Rumi
Farsi
Na man behooda girde kocha wa bazaar megardam
Mazaj-e-ashiqee daram paye dildar megardam
Khudaya rahm kun bar mann Pareshaan waar megardam
Khata karam gunah garam Bahaal e zaarar megardam
Sharabe showq menosham Ba girde yaar megardam
Sukhan mastana megoyam Bale hooshyaar megardam
Gahe khandam gahe giryam gahe uftam gahe khezam
Mazeeha dar dillam paida ho mann beemar mi gardam
Neither foolishly nor frivolously, through lane and market, I roam
Possessed by the temperament of the lover I am, to catch a glimpse, I roam
Oh Almighty! Shower your mercy upon me, disturbed and distracted I roam
I am guilty, I am sinful, and in this wretched condition I roam
The wine of fondness I drink, and around the Friend, I roam
Like the intoxicated I talk, but like the wise, I roam
Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I weep, sometimes I fall, sometimes I rise
The Messiah is within my heart and like an invalid I roam
The Wandering Singers
Sarojini Naidu
English
Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet,
Through echoing forest and echoing street,
With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam,
All men are our kindred, the world is our home.
Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed,
The laughter and beauty of women long dead;
The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,
And happy and simple and sorrowful things.
What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?
Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go.
No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait:
The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.
nostalgia
Time
Kahlil Gibran
Urdu, translated to English
And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?"
And he answered:
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?
But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.
Infancia (excerpt)
José Asuncion Silva
Spanish
Con el recuerdo vago de las cosas
Que embellecen el tiempo y la distancia
Retornan a las almas cariñosas
Cual bandada de blancas mariposas,
Los plácidos recuerdos de la infancia.
¡Caperucita, Barba Azul, pequeños
Liliputienses; Gulliver gigante
Que flotáis en las brumas de los sueños,
Aquí tended las alas
Que yo con alegría
Llamaré para haceros compañía
Al ratoncito Pérez y a Urdimalas!
¡Edad feliz! Seguir con vivos ojos
Donde la idea brilla,
De la maestra la cansada mano,
Sobre los grandes caracteres rojos
De la rota cartilla,
Donde el esbozo de un bosquejo vago,
Frutos de instantes de infantil despecho,
Las separadas letras juntas puso
Bajo la sombra de impasible techo.
En alas de la brisa
Del luminoso Agosto, blanca, inquieta
A la región de las errantes nubes
Hacer que se levante la cometa
En húmeda mañana
Accompanying the hazy memories
Time so generously glorifies,
Returning to a welcoming heart
And flocking like white butterflies,
Come fantasies of happy childhood days.
Blue Beard, Little Red Ridinghood,
Lilliputians and the giant Gulliver,
All of you, floating in the mist of dreams,
Spread your wings, fly,
So I, the happy journeyer
Through storybooks, may summon you
To join with other, beloved characters.
Childhood, hallowed valley
Of blessed calm and coolness,
Where rays that will later blast our days
So softly shine,
How saintly your pure innocence,
How fleeting. your brief happiness,
How sweet in hours of bitterness
To turn back to the past
And call upon those memories!
Punishment in Kindergarten
Kamala Suraiyya
English
Today the world is a little more my own.
No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace.
‘Why don't you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are! '
On the lawn, in clusters, sat my
schoolmates sipping
Sugarcane, they turned and laughed;
Children are funny things, they laugh
In mirth at others' tears, I buried
My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain.
The words are muffled now, the laughing
Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving
Sadly on. My mind has found
An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky.
Closets Redeemed
Varsha Saraiya-Shah
English
Things we lug for years unaware
how time stores us in belongings
we can’t let go from the days’ confluence.
The clothes children outgrew,
shoes that lasted a season or two, weary
now released from crowded back racks.
Songs that lulled and buoyed around the crib—
Old McDonald’s Farm and Mother Goose’s
whacky tricks once ruled motherhood’s queendom.
That unworn bundle of diapers
ought to part.
The yellow radio still recites jingles, crisp
like morning glories on a lawn
but faded and distant like the dawn
when I meted out a piece of my youth.
Little doctor’s kit, still fit
for my toddler’s fat fingers I can’t let go yet.
He used to take my pulse
gingerly jabbing a shot in my shoulder
planting his pouty face into my breast.
On the driveway, spring bugs in tandem
chase around the Red Riding hood,
missing pieces of jumbled puzzles—
So many satellites, each with an orbit of its own.
Ah, it’s fun playing the redeemer.
Longings for Home (excerpt)
Walt Whitman
English
O Magnet South! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!
O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or
through swamps; O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;
The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odor and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, (Here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his conceal'd hut;)
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles,
resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat,
and the whirr of the rattlesnake; The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!
woman
Pudhumai Penn
Subrahmanya Bharati
Tamil
Nimirndha nan nadai naer konda paarvaiyum
Nilathil yaarkkum anjaatha nerigalum
Thimirndha gnana cherukkum iruppadhaal
Semmai maadhar thirambuvadhu illaiyaam.
Penmai vaazhga endru koothiduvoamada
Penmai velga endru koothiduvoamada
Her head held high, she looks you in the eye,
Her innate integrity keeps her unafraid,
Possessing assuredness born of courage of conviction,
The Modern Woman never feels inferior
We will sing ‘Long Live Womanhood’ and dance. We hail the victory of Womanhood and rejoice
Phenomenal Woman (excerpt)
Maya Angelou
English
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
English
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Fight Song (excerpt)
Rachel Platten
English
Like a small boat on the ocean
Sending big waves into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion
This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care
If nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got
A lot of fight left in me
loss
Puedo Escribir
Pablo Neruda
Spanish
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: 'La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos.'
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oir la noche inmensa, más inmnesa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guadarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's.
As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me, and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Taruni Njan
Swati Tirunal
Malayalam
Taruni Njan endhu cheyvu andha ma maga dayithan enney maranno
Sarasijathille vellum maananan kaanmadhum
sarasa vachanaamritham kelpadhum yennu naan
Ee vannam, varumenayo nidrayil polum
Ethum Ninachavalalle
Ee vasumathiyathil vazhum maninimaari
Levamo mama shirasi vidhilikhitham
Mandarsharan choriyum sayakangalku
Madumozhi sanghya elle…. Swanthathil ulavakum gedamithaye…
Matha samaja gamane njan aarodu chollendu
O friend! What will I do? My beloved seems to have forgotten me!
When shall I see his lotus-like face and hear his love-filled speech?
I never thought this would happen to me even in my dreams.
Among all women in this world, why should I alone be unfortunate?
Is there no limit to the arrows that Cupid is aiming?
With whom shall I share the miserable thoughts that overwhelm me?
Jete Nahi Dibo (excerpt)
Rabindranath Tagore
Bengali (translated to English below)
I walk out of the door, and right outside
Sits my little daughter, all of four years.
On a regular day she'd be bathed and fed
And would perhaps be, by now, deep in sleep
But today her mother, being busy elsewhere
Has suspended her ward’s habitual upkeep.
The child has been following me like a shadow
Watching the preparations with rapt interest
Which perhaps tired her little body
And she sat down by the door for a bit of rest.
I said, "My little mother, bid me goodbye."
She sat there, her little face dark with woe.
Then, announced in her little daughter-like way
Looking up at me: "I won't let you go!"
She didn't bar my way, she didn't clutch my hand
She asserted her rightful right on me,
Confident in her power, "I won't let you go!"
How her mandate was futile, she could never see.
My little delusional creature of love
Of strength, how do you make such demands?
Muster such power, such brave need to hold
Someone back with your tiny little hands. How will you manage to keep everyone
You love? What battles will you fight?
Your love is your strength, your weapon, your shield
You’ve known how to love with all your wee might.
Out of your pained heart, emerged a desire today—
You could have said, "I wish you'd not leave."
You didn't express a wish, you demanded instead
My darling, I cannot imagine the ties you weave.
Reality defeated love's deep, strong pride,
This mocking world pulled me back in its stage
You kept sitting at the threshold, not moving at all /In grief, in nameless, tearful rage.
"I won't let you go" screams the surge of life
Showing forever that helplessness
In the face of separation, that eternal strife.
No one really listens; time takes it all
As love spins the earth, as empires fall.
No one ever answered. The world never cared.
Yet at this moment, all around me
A voice, like my daughter's, an ageless voice
Relentless, dauntless, forever free
Declares a war on loss, on the inevitable
Asks, "Why must I lose everything I own?
Why must I lose all I have loved
All that I desire, all that I've known?
Time's lesson unheeded, defeats ignored
Love asserts its arrogance, love shines its sword.
"Like a fleeting moment, like a speck of dust
In a quick heartbeat, in a fleeting breath
Loss descends like darkness
Like the deep calm of death.
Eyes flood, minds revolt, heads hang down
Like fallen trees in a raging gale
"How can my beloved go?" Love asks
Yet again and again, life’s designs must fail.
Such valiance is what makes one stand
Without fear or dilemma, unguarded Challenging death's aggressive blows
Frailty forgotten, the "self" discarded.
"You're not real , death, you do not exist"
Life asserts proudly, as death smirks on /Pride stands firm, love marches ahead
Knowing unknowingly that all must be gone.
Tears evaporate, not the fear of loss, /the eternal angst of severance, the deep despair
Often lies dormant at the feet of love, weak
Like a hesitant fog, under sun’s watchful stare."
inclusion
Tar Agus Tog
Ceaiti Ni Bhelduin
Irish
Má tá cosaint uait, tar
i dtreo mo shleasa is mo dhúnta;
má tá beannacht uait, tar
chun mo thoibreacha beo;
má tá ort dul i bhfolach, tar
faoi ionarbhréid mo cheo.
Fearaim fáilte roimis glaine croí
roimis aigne leathan oscailte.
Altaím taithí nua, cuairteoirí nua –
an laoch is an lag.
Tar ón Afraic is ón Oirthear
ó Siria, ón Eiritré, ón Afganastáin.
Tá scóip anseo ar mo sciortaí
togha is rogha de thithe:
tithe móra an Tíogair Cheiltigh
tithe chomh mór le hostáin
tithe móra na gcroíthe móra
tithe beaga fáilteacha
tithe lán ach slí i gcónaí
do dhuine breise iontu
tithe samhlaithe, tithe samhraidh
tithe folmha, tithe ullmha
tithe tréigthe, tithe titithe
tithe tinteáin, tithe le ceol is brí
tithe an dua, tithe na sí.
Tar thar lear, thar tairseach chugam –
tá láithreacha agam
is fothain anseo do phobal.
Tar isteach i mo bharróg.
Tar agus tóg.
If you are defenceless, come
close to my side and sanctuary;
if you are short of blessings, come
to drink from my wellsprings;
if you are in need of a hiding place, come
under the veil of my mists.
I give a welcome to the pure in heart
to a broad open mind.
I rejoice in new ways, new visitors –the mighty and the weak.
Come from Africa and the East /from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan.
There’s scope here in my skirts
for the picking and choosing of your houses:
the grand houses of the Tiger
as roomy as hotels
big houses with big hearts
little houses of welcome
houses full but always a way
to squeeze in a few more
holiday homes, dream homes
empty houses, houses just built
abandoned houses, fallen-down houses houses whose hearths ring with music and vigour houses of hardship, houses of the fairies.
Come across the seas to me, come into my place -
I have empty ground
and shelter here for a people.
Come into my open arms.
Partake.
Maithreem Bhajata
Jagadguru Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati
Sanskrit
Maithreem Bhajatha
Akhila Hrujjethreem,
Atmavadeva paraanapi pashyatha Yuddham thyajatha
Spardhaam Tyajata,
thyajatha Pareshu akramamaakramanam
Jananee Pruthivee Kaamadughaastey
JanakO Devah Sakala Dayaaluh Daamyata Datta Dayadhvam Janathaah
Sreyo Bhooyaath Sakala Janaanaam
Sreyo Bhooyaath Sakala Janaanaam
Sreyo Bhooyaath Sakala Janaanaam
Cultivate friendship and humility, which will conquer the hearts of everyone;
Look upon others similar to yourself. Renounce war
Forsake competition
Give up aggression
Mother Earth yields all that we desire, There is a single God, most compassionate to one and all
Practice restraint, donate your wealth to others, be kind to others, citizens of the world.
May all people of this world be happy and prosperous.
The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus
English
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”