Fleeting Joys - Ismaaciil Mire

Downpours of rain, dry valleys newly watered,
Hillsides resplendent with new verdant growth
And clans assembling under and acacia tree –
On such things were my thoughts and affections set,
But this world provides no lasting satisfaction.

Safety - Evelyn Underhill

Most wonderful, most deep security
That circles in the soul at hours of pain.
When the assaulting harms
Of death and love and treachery set on,
When we must con
The dreadful lessons of mortality;

To hold our language high - Michaël Slory

Don't make this language
get lost so carelessly.

On the day we met
we saw it fit
to speak it well.

The world - Henry Vaughan

            1.

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
    All calm, as it was bright, 
And round beneath it, Time is hours, days, years
    Driven by the spheres 
Like a vast shadow mov'd, in which the world
    And all her train were hurl'd; 

Izina - Ketty Nivyabandi

History will remember this man
Our grandchildren will study him between school recesses
Old women will speak of him as a strange enigma
A myth, an eccentric aberration . . .

Credo - Guy Tirolien

me too, I have my pocket credo
but don't go and repeat it before the garrulous winds
and the passing crowds
they'd laugh at you

My only begotten - Nadezhda Chernova

A strange kind of wish we have here,
to grasp at a moment’s picture
of a tomtit, a cloud, or a deer,
then flick through our pages even quicker.

My world - Anonymous

Say goodbye to our courtyard.
Tomorrow we’re setting out on the road,
leaving our little courtyard to be demolished.

Speak Up - Yesenqul Jaqypbek

I have a secret that hurts my soul.
There is one night I will remember forever.
There is a debt I still owe to society.
There is a complaint I couldn’t voice to the UN.

A wonderful night - Jontemir

The night bus stop.
Waiting in the corner.
Smoke rises from my cigarette.
“Are you waiting for the 94?”
I shake my head.