Things I Want Decided

Source: vommond.tumblr.com 

Which shouldn't exist

in this world,
the one who forgets
or the one
who is forgotten?

Which is better,
to love
one who has died
or not to see
each other when you are alive?

Which is better,
the distant lover
you long for
or the one you see daily
without desire?

Which is the least unreliable
among fickle things -
the swift rapids,
a flowing river,
or this human world?

~ Izumi Shikibu
(translated by Jane Hirshfield)

Things I Want Decided

Source: vommond.tumblr.com 

Which shouldn't exist

in this world,
the one who forgets
or the one
who is forgotten?

Which is better,
to love
one who has died
or not to see
each other when you are alive?

Which is better,
the distant lover
you long for
or the one you see daily
without desire?

Which is the least unreliable
among fickle things -
the swift rapids,
a flowing river,
or this human world?

~ Izumi Shikibu
(translated by Jane Hirshfield)

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

Photo credit: gravedigga from morguefile.com

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent -- what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness --
between you, there is nothing to forgive --
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is now a thing only for others.

It doesn't matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

 ~ Jane Hirshfield

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

Photo credit: gravedigga from morguefile.com

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent -- what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness --
between you, there is nothing to forgive --
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is now a thing only for others.

It doesn't matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

 ~ Jane Hirshfield

This Was Once a Love Poem

Photo credit: burns311 from morguefile.com

This was once a love poem,

before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short,

before it found itself sitting,

perplexed and a little embarrassed,

on the fender of a parked car,

while many people passed by without turning their heads.

It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement.

It remembers choosing these shoes,

this scarf or tie.

Once, it drank beer for breakfast,

drifted its feet

in a river side by side with the feet of another.

Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy,

dropping its head so the hair would fall forward,

so the eyes would not be seen.

It spoke with passion of history, of art.

It was lovely then, this poem.

Under its chin, no fold of skin softened.

Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat.

What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall.

An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks.

The longing has not diminished.

Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat,

the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus.

Yes, it decides:

Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots.

When it finds itself disquieted

by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life,

it will touch them—one, then another—

with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.

~ Jane Hirshfield

This Was Once a Love Poem

Photo credit: burns311 from morguefile.com

This was once a love poem,

before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short,

before it found itself sitting,

perplexed and a little embarrassed,

on the fender of a parked car,

while many people passed by without turning their heads.

It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement.

It remembers choosing these shoes,

this scarf or tie.

Once, it drank beer for breakfast,

drifted its feet

in a river side by side with the feet of another.

Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy,

dropping its head so the hair would fall forward,

so the eyes would not be seen.

It spoke with passion of history, of art.

It was lovely then, this poem.

Under its chin, no fold of skin softened.

Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat.

What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall.

An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks.

The longing has not diminished.

Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat,

the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus.

Yes, it decides:

Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots.

When it finds itself disquieted

by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life,

it will touch them—one, then another—

with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.

~ Jane Hirshfield

Optimism

Photo credit: clarencetey from morguefile.com

More and more I have come to admire resilience.

Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam

returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous

tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,

it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.

But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,

mitochondria, figs -- all this resinous, unretractable earth.

~ Jane Hirshfield

Optimism

Photo credit: clarencetey from morguefile.com

More and more I have come to admire resilience.

Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam

returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous

tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,

it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.

But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,

mitochondria, figs -- all this resinous, unretractable earth.

~ Jane Hirshfield

Waking This Morning Dreamless After Long Sleep

Photo credit: rosiner from morguefile.com

But with this sentence:

“Use your failures for paper.”

Meaning, I understood,

the backs of failed poems, but also my life.

Whose far side I begin now to enter–

A book imprinted without seeming reason,

each blank day bearing on its reverse, in random order,

the mad-set type of another.

December 12, 1960. April 4, 1981. 13th of August, 1974-

Certain words bleed through to the unwritten pages.

To call this memory offers no solace.

“Even in sleep, the heavy millstones turning.”

I do not know where the words come from,

what the millstones,

where the turning may lead.

I, a woman forty-five, beginning to grey at the temples,

putting pages of ruined paper

into a basket, pulling them out again.

___________________________________________________

Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you. ~ Marsha Norman

Waking This Morning Dreamless After Long Sleep

Photo credit: rosiner from morguefile.com

But with this sentence:

“Use your failures for paper.”

Meaning, I understood,

the backs of failed poems, but also my life.

Whose far side I begin now to enter–

A book imprinted without seeming reason,

each blank day bearing on its reverse, in random order,

the mad-set type of another.

December 12, 1960. April 4, 1981. 13th of August, 1974-

Certain words bleed through to the unwritten pages.

To call this memory offers no solace.

“Even in sleep, the heavy millstones turning.”

I do not know where the words come from,

what the millstones,

where the turning may lead.

I, a woman forty-five, beginning to grey at the temples,

putting pages of ruined paper

into a basket, pulling them out again.

___________________________________________________

Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you. ~ Marsha Norman