Loss

Source: Unknown/Favim

Such lies have been told about her.
My favorite: ‘when she comes
The blue hand of the sky vanishes.
Hippos storm the sun.
Birds peck furiously at anthills.
Wings wrap tightly against trees.’
But notice how she doesn’t say a word
And sits beside you when
The moments of love have flickered their last.
How she stands beside you when solitude
Has you cornered. Right now she is outside
Rinsing her hair. Later, she’ll use it
To wipe the mirrors of your heart.

~ Abayomi Animashaun

Loss

Source: Unknown/Favim

Such lies have been told about her.
My favorite: ‘when she comes
The blue hand of the sky vanishes.
Hippos storm the sun.
Birds peck furiously at anthills.
Wings wrap tightly against trees.’
But notice how she doesn’t say a word
And sits beside you when
The moments of love have flickered their last.
How she stands beside you when solitude
Has you cornered. Right now she is outside
Rinsing her hair. Later, she’ll use it
To wipe the mirrors of your heart.

~ Abayomi Animashaun

At The Gate Of A Hospital

Paul McCarthy, Mannequin Head, 1995, Courtesy The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens.

Lo! Who is being down loaded,
From the ambulance,
Covered with the bed sheet,
All spotted with blood,
And now tossing for life?
Her swollen belly portends,
That it contains a pre-born babe.
Oh! They tell she has been shot,
By her husband: the crown of head,
For not affording,
The substance for drink;
She was spared no more,
Though six children she bore.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Lying on the cot,
All scratched, nailed,
Bitten and torn,
As if the dogs,
Have exercised well their skill,
In the same way,
When they prey upon the deer?
Oh! They say she was raped,
By the men twelve,
They let loose appetite,
Of their bestial nature,
They always remained unpunished,
In the plagued system.
Now the cameramen zoom around,
For the public display,
To rag her remaining honour,
And a few men of law,
With the heavy round bellies,
Move helplessly.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Wrapped in a blanket,
With singed, burnt face,
Too horrible to see,
Shreds from her arms,
Are lurking loose,
Making the bones naked,
Yet she breathes,
Huffing like a furnace,
Her eyes exhibit,
Display a state of horror?
Oh! They tell she was burnt,
For restraining, preventing,
The husband: the guardian,
From fourth love marriage.

~ Shahida Latif

At The Gate Of A Hospital

Paul McCarthy, Mannequin Head, 1995, Courtesy The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens.

Lo! Who is being down loaded,
From the ambulance,
Covered with the bed sheet,
All spotted with blood,
And now tossing for life?
Her swollen belly portends,
That it contains a pre-born babe.
Oh! They tell she has been shot,
By her husband: the crown of head,
For not affording,
The substance for drink;
She was spared no more,
Though six children she bore.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Lying on the cot,
All scratched, nailed,
Bitten and torn,
As if the dogs,
Have exercised well their skill,
In the same way,
When they prey upon the deer?
Oh! They say she was raped,
By the men twelve,
They let loose appetite,
Of their bestial nature,
They always remained unpunished,
In the plagued system.
Now the cameramen zoom around,
For the public display,
To rag her remaining honour,
And a few men of law,
With the heavy round bellies,
Move helplessly.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Wrapped in a blanket,
With singed, burnt face,
Too horrible to see,
Shreds from her arms,
Are lurking loose,
Making the bones naked,
Yet she breathes,
Huffing like a furnace,
Her eyes exhibit,
Display a state of horror?
Oh! They tell she was burnt,
For restraining, preventing,
The husband: the guardian,
From fourth love marriage.

~ Shahida Latif

How Could She Not

Source: elisaxdcfc.tumblr.com/Favim.com

In Memory of Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

The air glitters. Overfull clouds
slide across the sky. A short shower,
its parallel diagonals visible
against the firs, douses and then
refreshes the crocuses. We knew
it might happen one day this week.
Out the open door, east of us, stand
the mountains of New Hampshire.
There, too, the sun is bright,
and heaped cumuli make their shadowy
ways along the horizon. When we learn
that she died this morning, we wish
we could think: how could it not
have been today? In another room,
Kiri Te Kanawa is singing
Mozart’s Laudate Dominum
from far in the past, her voice
barely there over the swishing of scythes,
and rattlings of horse-pulled
mowing machines dragging
their cutter bar’s little reciprocating
triangles through the timothy.

This morning did she wake
in the dark, almost used up
by her year of pain? By first light
did she glimpse the world
as she had loved it, and see
that if she died now, she would
be leaving him in a day like paradise?
Near sunrise did her hold loosen a little?

Having these last days spoken
her whole heart to him, who spoke
his whole heart to her, might she not
have felt that in the silence to come
he would not feel any word
was missing? When her room filled
with daylight, how could she not
have slipped under a spell, with him
next to her, his arms around her, as they
had been, it may then have seemed,
all her life? How could she not
press her cheek to his cheek,
which presses itself to hers
from now on? How could she not
rise and go, with sunlight at the window,
and the drone, fading, deepening, hard to say,
of a single-engine plane in the distance,
coming for her, that no one else hears?

~ Galway Kinnell

(Note: There are many versions of this poem. Even the title differs - some are called How Could You Not. I chose the one from Strong Is Your Hold: Poems published in 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.) 

How Could She Not

Source: elisaxdcfc.tumblr.com/Favim.com

In Memory of Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

The air glitters. Overfull clouds
slide across the sky. A short shower,
its parallel diagonals visible
against the firs, douses and then
refreshes the crocuses. We knew
it might happen one day this week.
Out the open door, east of us, stand
the mountains of New Hampshire.
There, too, the sun is bright,
and heaped cumuli make their shadowy
ways along the horizon. When we learn
that she died this morning, we wish
we could think: how could it not
have been today? In another room,
Kiri Te Kanawa is singing
Mozart’s Laudate Dominum
from far in the past, her voice
barely there over the swishing of scythes,
and rattlings of horse-pulled
mowing machines dragging
their cutter bar’s little reciprocating
triangles through the timothy.

This morning did she wake
in the dark, almost used up
by her year of pain? By first light
did she glimpse the world
as she had loved it, and see
that if she died now, she would
be leaving him in a day like paradise?
Near sunrise did her hold loosen a little?

Having these last days spoken
her whole heart to him, who spoke
his whole heart to her, might she not
have felt that in the silence to come
he would not feel any word
was missing? When her room filled
with daylight, how could she not
have slipped under a spell, with him
next to her, his arms around her, as they
had been, it may then have seemed,
all her life? How could she not
press her cheek to his cheek,
which presses itself to hers
from now on? How could she not
rise and go, with sunlight at the window,
and the drone, fading, deepening, hard to say,
of a single-engine plane in the distance,
coming for her, that no one else hears?

~ Galway Kinnell

(Note: There are many versions of this poem. Even the title differs - some are called How Could You Not. I chose the one from Strong Is Your Hold: Poems published in 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.)