Things

Source: Favim

What happened is, we grew lonely

living among the things,

so we gave the clock a face,

the chair a back,

the table four stout legs

which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues

as smooth as our own

and hung tongues inside bells

so we could listen

to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles

the pitcher received a lip,

the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us

was recast in our image;

we gave the country a heart,

the storm an eye,

the cave a mouth

so we could pass into safety.

~ Lisel Mueller

Things

Source: Favim

What happened is, we grew lonely

living among the things,

so we gave the clock a face,

the chair a back,

the table four stout legs

which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues

as smooth as our own

and hung tongues inside bells

so we could listen

to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles

the pitcher received a lip,

the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us

was recast in our image;

we gave the country a heart,

the storm an eye,

the cave a mouth

so we could pass into safety.

~ Lisel Mueller

Love Like Salt

Image courtesy: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

~ Lisel Mueller

Love Like Salt

Image courtesy: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

~ Lisel Mueller

Romantics

Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann 

The modern biographers worry

“how far it went,” their tender friendship.

They wonder just what it means

when he writes he thinks of her constantly,

his guardian angel, beloved friend.

The modern biographers ask

the rude, irrelevant question

of our age, as if the event

of two bodies meshing together

establishes the degree of love,

forgetting how softly Eros walked

in the nineteenth-century, how a hand

held overlong or a gaze anchored

in someone's eyes could unseat a heart,

and nuances of address not known

in our egalitarian language

could make the redolent air

tremble and shimmer with the heat

of possibility. Each time I hear

the Intermezzi, sad

and lavish in their tenderness,

I imagine the two of them

sitting in a garden

among late-blooming roses

and dark cascades of leaves,

letting the landscape speak for them,

leaving us nothing to overhear.

~ Lisel Mueller

Romantics

Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann 

The modern biographers worry

“how far it went,” their tender friendship.

They wonder just what it means

when he writes he thinks of her constantly,

his guardian angel, beloved friend.

The modern biographers ask

the rude, irrelevant question

of our age, as if the event

of two bodies meshing together

establishes the degree of love,

forgetting how softly Eros walked

in the nineteenth-century, how a hand

held overlong or a gaze anchored

in someone's eyes could unseat a heart,

and nuances of address not known

in our egalitarian language

could make the redolent air

tremble and shimmer with the heat

of possibility. Each time I hear

the Intermezzi, sad

and lavish in their tenderness,

I imagine the two of them

sitting in a garden

among late-blooming roses

and dark cascades of leaves,

letting the landscape speak for them,

leaving us nothing to overhear.

~ Lisel Mueller

Virtuosi

Photo credit: keyseeker from morguefile.com

(In memory of my parents)

People whose lives have been shaped

by history—and it is always tragic—

do not want to talk about it,

would rather dance, give parties

on thrift-shop china. You feel

wonderful in their homes,

two leaky rooms, nests

they stowed inside their hearts

on the road into exile.

They know how to fix potato peelings

and apple cores so you smack your lips.

The words start over again

hold no terror for them.

Obediently they rise

and go with only a rucksack

or tote bag. If they weep,

it’s when you’re not looking.

To tame their nightmares, they choose

the most dazzling occupations,

swallow the flames in the sunset sky,

jump through burning hoops

in their elegant tiger suits.

Cover your eyes: there’s one

walking on a thread

thirty feet above us—

shivering points of light

leap across her body,

and she works without a net.

~ Lisel Mueller

________________________________________________

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. ~ Anonymous

Virtuosi

Photo credit: keyseeker from morguefile.com

(In memory of my parents)

People whose lives have been shaped

by history—and it is always tragic—

do not want to talk about it,

would rather dance, give parties

on thrift-shop china. You feel

wonderful in their homes,

two leaky rooms, nests

they stowed inside their hearts

on the road into exile.

They know how to fix potato peelings

and apple cores so you smack your lips.

The words start over again

hold no terror for them.

Obediently they rise

and go with only a rucksack

or tote bag. If they weep,

it’s when you’re not looking.

To tame their nightmares, they choose

the most dazzling occupations,

swallow the flames in the sunset sky,

jump through burning hoops

in their elegant tiger suits.

Cover your eyes: there’s one

walking on a thread

thirty feet above us—

shivering points of light

leap across her body,

and she works without a net.

~ Lisel Mueller

________________________________________________

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. ~ Anonymous

The Laughter Of Women

The laughter of women sets fire

to the Halls of Injustice

and the false evidence burns

to a beautiful white lightness

It rattles the Chambers of Congress

and forces the windows wide open

so the fatuous speeches can fly out

The laughter of women wipes the mist

from the spectacles of the old;

it infects them with a happy flu

and they laugh as if they were young again

Prisoners held in underground cells

imagine that they see daylight

when they remember the laughter of women

It runs across water that divides,

and reconciles two unfriendly shores

like flares that signal the news to each other

What a language it is, the laughter of women,

high-flying and subversive.

Long before law and scripture

we heard the laughter, we understood freedom.

~ Lisel Mueller

The Laughter Of Women

The laughter of women sets fire

to the Halls of Injustice

and the false evidence burns

to a beautiful white lightness

It rattles the Chambers of Congress

and forces the windows wide open

so the fatuous speeches can fly out

The laughter of women wipes the mist

from the spectacles of the old;

it infects them with a happy flu

and they laugh as if they were young again

Prisoners held in underground cells

imagine that they see daylight

when they remember the laughter of women

It runs across water that divides,

and reconciles two unfriendly shores

like flares that signal the news to each other

What a language it is, the laughter of women,

high-flying and subversive.

Long before law and scripture

we heard the laughter, we understood freedom.

~ Lisel Mueller