In her shoes - Asante Lucy Mtenje

In her shoes, those shoes,
those two sizes too big,
worn out “kanavasi”
she drags along to the dumpsters
to rummage through the wilting,
rusty banana and mango peels,
disregarding the stench and the flies
that hover around her long
after she has retired to “bed”.

O the Chimneys - Nelly Sachs

O the chimneys
On the carefully planned dwellings of death
When Israel’s body rose dissolved in smoke

The world is being run on time - Francis Brabazon

The world is being run on time, by time, for time, and at no time are we free
Just to sit and enjoy even the outward forms of the Beloved's beauty.

Discourse with Mara - Sisupacala

Setting at Savatthi. Then, in the morning, the bhikkhuni Sisupacala dressed... she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day's abiding.

When night draws on - al-Khansāʾ

When night draws on, remembering keeps me wakeful 
And hinders my rest with grief upon grief returning 
For Ṣakhr. What a man was he on the day of battle, 
When, snatching their chance, they swiftly exchange the spear-thrusts! 

Before there was a trace of this world of men - Bibi Hayati

Before there was a trace of this world of men,
I carried the memory of a lock of your hair,
A stray end gathered within me, though unknown.

Hymn to Adonis - Praxilla

The most beautiful thing I leave behind is the sun’s light; 

second, the shining stars and the moon’s face; 

also ripe cucumbers and apples and pears.

The sixth love - Beatrice of Nazareth

When the bride of our Lord has made progress 

and has climbed up to greater robustness, 
she experiences yet another way of love, 

more profoundly joined and with higher knowledge.

I long for the land that is not - Edith Södergran

I long for the land that is not,
For all that is, I am weary of wanting.
The moon speaks to me in silvern runes
About the land that is not.

Longing - Juan Ramón Molina

Ah, that I had lived in times tested
by love, by war and by conquest,
when friars, soldiers and desperadoes
went off across unquiet seas
in search of distant lands,