Ilka Blade o’ Grass Keps its ain Drap o’ Dew - James Ballantine

Confide ye aye in Providence, for Providence is kind,

And hear ye a’ life’s changes wi’ a calm and tranquil mind.

Tho’ press’d and hemm’d on every side, hae fath an ye’ll win through,

For ilka blade o’ grass keps its ain drap o’ dew.

When I hunger to praise Thee - Abraham ibn Ezra

When I hunger to praise Thee, I’m sated;

When to worship I thirst, I am drunk.

Almost without Noticing - Eira Stenberg

Almost without noticing,

without thinking, it seems,

you've arrived where you see far.

trees and the silence around us - Japhia Beckford

Trees are big

Trees are small

But no country has them all

I Hear Your Voice - Francisco García Jiménez

Afraid of dying,

longing to be alive—

dreams or reality?

Post Scriptum - Toeti Heraty

I want to write

an erotic poem

in which raw words, unadorned,

become beautiful

The Om - Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming

My Tanty used to sing/pray

evening ragas to the Earth Goddess

morning oblations to the Sun God

Voices - Zahra el Hasnaui

To all the Sahrawi voices locked in graves and jails;

those voices that, nevertheless, bring down more than walls.

Perhaps you think your voice does not reach me,

that the evil sirocco carries it off

before it fills my senses.

Perhaps you dream that the echo is mute

the mirror blind and your lines

cowardice.

Your clones pile up,

and in a riot they fight

in black and white

to leave my throat.

Sometimes I spit,

almost always I gobble

down wrath and blood,

and peace and dirt.

I would like to chain

your hands to mine

and swing open the roof

top up to the stars.

I would like to wash

the anger from your eyes.

Thirty voices

thirty times

repeat the history,

because no one or thing

ever could or can tame

the voices that brush

against the soul.

---

Zahra el Hasnaui (born 1964) Western Sahara

Translated by Joseph Mulligan

Source: Poems for the Millennium, Vol 4, edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, 2012

Halley's Comet - Jaroslav Seifert

I saw nothing at that moment,

             nothing but strangers' backs,

heads under their hats craning.

The street was crowded.

Do not boast of your speed - Hwang Jini

Do not boast of your speed,

O blue-green stream running by the hills:

Once you have reached the wide ocean,

You can return no more.